Cape Wind president defends pricing (Boston)

The price for power from the planned Cape Wind turbines in Nantucket Sound would be "a bargain," the president of developer Cape Wind Associates said Monday.

In a 90-minute interview with the Boston Business Journal, Jim Gordon strongly defended the project on a number of levels, from economic to environmental to philosophical. The project has faced claims that the project’s power would cost more than twice the normal rate of electricity generated from fossil fuels.

Beginning in 2013, National Grid agreed to buy the power at 20.7 cents per kilowatt hour. Gordon noted that this price includes transmission charges, and will remain stable over the life of the 15-year contract - which he said contrasts with the volatility of fossil fuel costs.

“I see Cape Wind saving customers money and improving their health, and the environment, and our energy security,” he said. “Add all that up, and this is a bargain. It’s a real bargain.”

Gordon also said that no matter what the project costs to build and maintain, ratepayers will never have to pay more than what’s in the contract with utility National Grid.

He was responding to claims that potential cost overruns on the 130-turbine project could be passed to ratepayers above the annual 3.5 percent increase in the National Grid contract. Gordon called the claims baseless, saying that any potential overruns would “accrue to Cape Wind.”

Read the full story in the Boston Business Journal.