February 23, 2006

Airtricity unable to maintain pyramid scheme

Irish wind energy company Airtricity has dumped its residential and large commercial customers, abruptly telling them last weekend to make other arrangements, as reported in the Sunday Times (U.K.) and elsewhere.

They had hoped to keep on building wind turbines fast enough that subsidies would cover the cost of providing reliable electricity to new customers who pay them for the belief that their electricity will be "cleanly" generated from the wind.

But first the Irish Grid stopped all new connections of wind turbine generators for 18 months, and then Airtricity was repeatedly being outbid wherever they turned for other sources to provide their growing list of customers.

The scheme could not be sustained. Eleven thousand customers received letters from Airtricity informing them that their contracts were no longer in effect.

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