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Governor of Vt. rips energy grid call

MONTPELIER — Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont said Monday that he is disappointed that the operator of the region's electric grid decided to scale back renewable energy production during peak energy demand caused by the recent heat wave.

In a letter to the president and chief executive of ISO New England, Shumlin criticized the grid operator's decision to increase output from coal and oil power plants, while scaling back renewable energy production.

He said the decision ran counter to Vermont's policies, which are aimed at increasing production of clean, local, renewable energy, such as wind power.

Shumlin also called upon ISO New England to work with states to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and integrate renewables into the regional grid.

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ISO spokeswoman Marcia Blomberg said the organization was drafting a response to Shumlin.

She said the curtailment of power from Green Mountain Power's Kingdom Community Wind project was necessary because that project had not yet installed all its grid interconnection equipment and therefore could not meet federal reliability standards.

Both Shumlin and Dorothy Schnure — spokeswoman for Green Mountain Power Corp., which owns the Lowell wind turbines — said they want to press the ISO on this question; they want to make sure that any discretion is being exercised in favor of renewable energy.

''I urge ISO-NE to consider whether . . . it could do more to integrate and fully utilize renewable resources into its grid operations, including during times of peak demand where use of other more expensive and dirtier resources may be avoided,'' Shumlin wrote.