Does your utility offer a Green Power option or sell Green Tags?

In many states, utilities can offer their customers a "green power" option that allows them to purchase electricity from renewable sources (wind, low-impact hydro, PV, landfill methane micro-power plants and geothermal).

These options, however, cost slightly more than the "Standard Offer" - the price of aggregate power produced by the entire mix of generators on the local grid....

http://www.tva.gov/greenpowerswitch/

http://www.cogreenpower.org/Signup.htm

http://www.greenpoweremc.com/index.asp

http://www.conedsolutions.com/Residential/GreenPowerMain.htm

http://www.mainegreenpower.org/menu/index.shtml

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/green/greenpower/

http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp000851.jsp

http://www.montanagreenpower.com/news_greenpower.html

Green Tags - regulated tradable renewable energy certificates - allow individuals or businesses to purchase the environmental attributes of electricity generated from renewable sources. In some cases, purchasing Green Tags is equivalent to buying renewable power. Green Tags are sold to the public in low-priced blocks. They are an affordable way for electricity consumers who do not have access to green power programs to participate in the renewable power market.

They're a bit more complicated than green power purchases though....

http://www.ems.org/renewables/green_tags.html

http://www.green-e.org/media_ed/7new.trcs.html

https://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/index.cfm

http://www.mainstayenergy.com/

http://www.meipl.org/buy/certificates.shtml

Many businesses, like White Wave (the makers of Silk soy milk), purchase Green Tags to offset their consumption of electricity generated from non-renewable sources.

http://www.whitewave.com/index.php?id=108&pid=27

My utility (Gulf Power), however, doesn't offer a green power option. I use ~175 to 300 kwh per month or ~3000 kwh per year. This year, I'm buying 3 Green Tags from an outfit in Maine at $20 a 1000 kwh block. This will allow me to buy into the green power market for ~ 16 cents a day. Sent my first check out this morning.

My siblings and I recently inherited the family "Camp" on a lake in central Maine. It's a late 19th century structure that I've always wanted to take off-grid. It has a propane cook stove, a Victorian wood stove and an electric pump that supplies lake water for the shower, toilet and sinks.

Unfortunately, only a small portion of the roof is exposed to direct sunlight - not enough to justify a large PV system and there is no place to put up a wind turbine.

My solution is to buy the Maine Clean Power Plus option offered by Maine Interfaith Power and Light and invest in new energy efficient appliances.

http://www.meipl.org/

There are two refrigerators in the Camp - a large '70's vintage GE model in the kitchen and a '70's vintage dorm-sized one in the entryway (the beer and night crawlers fridge).

These two appliances consume ~1000 kwh each season. I'm going to replace them with two Energy Star certified fridges next year - a Frigidaire FRT21HC5D and a Haier America 2.7 cubic footer. I'm also replacing all remaining incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents.

This will reduce our electricity consumption from ~1054 kwh per year to ~374 kwh per year - a 64% reduction.

Even though the Maine Clean Power Plus option is 2 cents a kwh more expensive than the Standard Offer, these measures will cut our electric bill by ~54%.

The next project will be to replace the old (and currently uninsulated) hot water tank with a tank-less electric model. The one I'm looking into can handle colder lake water early and late in the summer season - and it's got a great warrantee...

http://www.e-tankless.com/

...and it should cut our electricity use for hot water by ~40% or more....

http://www.e-tankless.com/savings.php

And finally, once the space where the old hot water heater sits is freed up, I'm going to install a Nomad 1500 PV system...

http://www.solarsense.com/Products/1-Complete_Systems/3-NOMAD_1500/NOMAD_1500.html

I'm going to get the 150 (3 x 50) watt PV module option, a pure sine-wave inverter and an add-on 75 amp-hour battery. This will allow us to operate low-wattage DC fluorescent lights and a DC TV for several hours each day without stressing the batteries. If it qualifies for Maine's $3 per peak watt PV rebate, that money would offset much of the expense of the added options.

Not quite enough to take the place off-grid, but it's the next best thing...




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but I don't know much about this particular topic. However, I do know that our LRTs (light rapid transit i.e. trains) here in Calgary are 100% emission free. They are electric and get all that wonderful juice from the windmill farms down in Lethbridge. Imagine! In oil-rich Alberta, in the city that grew up on oil & gas, a municipal public transit system that runs on wind power! Will wonders never cease.:toast:

All from biomass, they say. A couple years ago the power company sent out a little slip of paper in with the bill that showed the source of power generation and emissions. I gasped when I saw the high percentage of coal and nuclear used to generate my power. Then I found out about http://www.powerchoice.com/ which offers a couple different green plans. 100% green costs between one half and one cent per kWh more than the regular generators.

Unless you really can't afford it, everyone who can should enroll in these kinds of plans. The price will come down faster if more people demand it.

and they are not budget busters by any means.

The only similar option my utility (Gulf Power: a subsidiary of the Southern Company) offers is its EarthCents program....(and it's buried deeeeeep inside Gulf Power's website)....

http://www.southerncompany.com/earthcents/home.asp?mnuOpco=soco&mnuType=sub&mnuItem=ps

I am sure if this program was actively promoted, they would get the 10,000 subscribers (<0.3% of Southern Power's residential customers) needed to implement it.

I signed up for it but I ain't holding my breath waiting for it to happen...

You pay just $3.00 additional per month for each block of renewable energy, the equivalent of 150 kilowatt-hours (kWh). For example, we signed up for four blocks and the a renewable energy charge of $12.00 for 600 kWh appears on our monthly bill.

This doesn't guarantee that the energy we use comes from renewable (it doesn't -- we draw from a small 24MW municipal coal plant), but it does require our utility to purchase renewable energy as a portion of their protfolio.

The PG&E "power content label" is:

42% Natural Gas

23% Nuclear

19% Large Hydro

13% Biomass, Geothermal, Small Hydro, Wind, Solar

3% Coal

That's a pretty "green" mix compared to much of the United States.

I'm very stingy, so I like to put my money into conservation. If I reduce my electric consumption I benefit very directly. I pay less for electricity.

Also, to the extent I can generate my own electricity, I increase my own security. Even if the power went out at my house for a week or two at a time, I still have the means to keep a few systems running.

If I buy "green power" then that industry gets the direct benefits. This is not a bad thing, but a decision to purchase "green power" is based to some extent upon my altruism.

Therefore I don't oppose green power programs, but I have doubts about their overall effectiveness. It seems a little bit like promising a heroin addict chocolate whenever he's not shooting up, you are not likely to "cure" the addiction that way.

A large portion of our population won't care where their energy comes from until it is too late -- that is, when the economy and/or environment crashes. (It may already be too late.)

We could solve our "energy crisis" today with existing technologies. All we need is the political will to do it. Green power programs may supply a gentle nudge towards that goal, but what we really need is a huge kick in the butt.

but unfortunately the one we're about to get from ChimpCo and the GOP (in the House version of the Energy Bill) is not what we need. More the the point, it's just plain counterproductive.

It's becoming more apparent each year that we will never have a rational national energy policy in this country.

It's also becoming more apparent that a rational energy policy is going to have to emerge at the individual, local and state levels.

It's no coincidence then, that green power programs, rebates for residential PV and solar thermal energy systems, ambitious Renewable Portfolio Standards and low/zero auto emission standards are largely Blue State initiatives.

So maybe we can, as individuals, impress our neighbors with a PV array, a wind turbine or solar hot water heater on our roofs, a hybrid in our driveway or impress out Red State brethren (and sisteren) with successful and popular green power programs.

Energy Leadership won't come from "Warshington Deeshee" that's for sure.

BTW: Maine has the highest percentage of "renewable" electricity generating capacity in the US: ~50% from renewable sources (25% wood biomass, 17% low-head hydro, 13% from municipal trash)...

...and no coal or nuclear plants...

Maine's renewable capacity alone could satisfy its entire residential demand and several large (>50 MW) wind power stations are scheduled to on-line in the next few years.

As Maine goes...etc.