California to pay high price for 'renewable' energy

San Francisco Chronicle:

California's increasing use of renewable power will come at a price, pushing up electricity bills across the state. 

And while it's impossible to tell how big the cost to consumers will be, some experts fear the total cost of renewable energy in California will be in the billions of dollars. 

In the next three years, many long-planned solar plants and wind farms will come online, bringing California closer to its goal of getting one-third of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As soon as they start delivering power to utility companies, the utilities' customers will start paying for that electricity. 

But the public doesn't get to see the prices the utilities are paying. And without that information, assessing the impact on consumers is difficult at best. 

Few doubt that higher bills are on their way. 

"You're going to see significant price increases over time from renewables," said Aaron Johnson, director of renewable energy policy at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. "As you add it to the system, it is going to result in higher costs for consumers." 

California energy regulators, who approve contracts between utilities and renewable power developers, keep the prices confidential for the first three years after each solar plant, geothermal plant or wind farm starts operations. The information blackout was supposed to protect the public by keeping power plant operators from seeing each others' prices and raising their own to match - a major worry back when the state had only a handful of renewable power projects selling electricity to the utilities.

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There is more.

This market manipulation is costing consumers.  If their was a free and open market, you would want to publish the price so competitors could offer the same service for less.  They know that the so called renewables can't compete on price, so they try to hide it.