Please come and speak in favor of Cape Wind at the last Department of Public Utilities (DPU) public hearing on NSTAR’s contract to purchase 27 ½% of Cape Wind’s power. In 2010, the DPU approved National Grid’s contract to purchase 50% of Cape Wind’s power – taken together, these two contracts allow Cape Wind to move forward toward construction.

Please come and speak at this public hearing. Please try to arrive early as speakers will called in the order in which they signed up.

If you can come, please RSVP to: rsvpcapewind@gmail.com.

Boston, Massachusetts
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 7:00 p.m.
Department of Public Utilities
One South Station, 5th Floor
Boston, Massachusetts 02110

Opponents to Cape Wind try to mislead the public by falsely claiming this contract will cause electric bills to ‘skyrocket’ – the reality is the bill impact will be about one dollar a month for a typical residential customer and no more than a 1% to 2% bill increase for any NSTAR customer.

As the price of fossil fuel increases, Cape Wind will save consumers money. This NSTAR contract will make Cape Wind a reality, causing:

· 600 to 1,000 jobs created in construction
· 50 permanent operations jobs based on Cape Cod, with another 100 indirect jobs from operations
· Enough clean wind power created to supply up to a half million homes, 200,000 homes in average winds; this is as much electricity as importing and burning 113 million gallons of oil or over 500,000 tons of coal
· Reducing by 770,000 tons of greenhouse gasses emitted into our atmosphere from regional power plants every year
· Reducing over 1,000 tons of pollutants harmful to human health put into our air by regional power plants every year
· Giving Massachusetts the ‘first mover advantage’ in offshore wind power enabling us to secure the first pieces of the supply chain to serve this growing industry, creating jobs that will last for decades like at the offshore wind staging and assembly site planned for New Bedford.  Cape Wind avoids the environmental, public health, climate and national security costs we all pay from importing and burning fossil fuels.

Those ‘external’ costs don’t show up on our electric bills, but we all pay them in other ways. Any focus on a small electric bill increase from Cape Wind must take into account these avoided costs. Finally, according to Charles River Associates, Cape Wind will place downward pressure on New England wholesale electric market prices that will total over $7 Billion dollars in savings over the life of the project from the ‘price suppression’ effect of using a zero-cost fuel. This will help reduce the electric bills that everyone in New England pays.

Click here to read the Charles River Associates study.

Click here for more detailed information on how Cape Wind will benefit Massachusetts electricity customers.