Comments Spill Over to Greenfield from Hoosac Ribbon-cutting
Ray S. Hartman’s op ed, the “Inconvenient truth on wind” in the December 14,2012 Greenfield Recorder, reviews the failings of wind technology
… in inland New England, IWTs will not reduce our carbon footprint. They will not contribute in any way toward limiting global warming. They will however significantly increase the cost of every person’s and business’s electricity, precisely at a time when we cannot afford it. The reason is that the subsidies paid to keep this economically unsustainable technology operating will be spread over everyone’s monthly electric bill, in addition to the cost of the normal fossil-fuel-based capacity required to back-up those IWTs.
Hartman exclaims:
Wake up, Massachusetts. The Patrick administration is telling the Big Lie to promote a pipe dream energy technology (Big Wind) that will be revealed as the Big Boondoggle a decade from now. I wish Big Wind were the answer; it would be such a wonderful way to power our region. The inconvenient truth is that it fails upon almost all criteria.
An earlier letter (12/11/2012) “Losing on wind” from Lloyd Crawford anticipates some of Hartman’s points and concludes
Disturbingly, demand for new electricity is growing faster than in-state wind/solar generating capacity. So, contrary to what the governor said to the media [at the Hoosac ribbon-cutting], we are actually losing ground.
These facts eclipse all other facets of the debate about wind power in that they challenge the very core of widely held assumptions about what we can really accomplish with wind energy. When so little is gained, why is it worth the massive public subsidies, impact on neighbors, wildlife, etc?
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
In Fact, when it comes to depending on wind to address the need for new electricity, little to none of wind power capacity contributes. The link below shows how it is treated in other regions.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=1370
The parameter used by planners to determine how much power capacity is needed at any given time is called Capacity Value (CV).
Faced with political pressure to keep the value of CV as high as possible, the different regions do not agree on how low this value should be. In practice however, the value of CV is 5% or less, and it most likely would be zero in the absence of political pressure.