You think green energy crates jobs? Guess again.

A power producer typically gets paid for the power it generates. In Texas, some wind energy generators are paying to have someone take power off their hands.

Because of intense competition, the way wind tax credits work, the location of the wind farms and the fact that the wind often blows at night, wind farms in Texas are generating power they can't sell. To get rid of it, they are paying the state's main grid operator to accept it. $40 a megawatt hour is roughly the going rate.

This is really incredible. The power companies are constructing wind turbines and, at certain times, not only providing the power for free but actually paying the grid to take it. All to capture subsidies and tax credits paid for by these special rate surcharges. The only jobs being created are analysts trying to find the best way to rent-seek under these new laws. I would rather pay people to dig holes and fill them back in.

Once you start screwing with the market ever more laws are required to make up for the distortions created by the previous set of laws. It never ends and only gets worse.

H/T linearthinker at my post Wind Scam

Cross Posted at Power and Control