Green Electricity Providers

Green electricity is power generated from renewable sources such as solar, wind, and hydroelectricity. Selecting a green electricity provider is a great option for consumers who are not yet prepared to install their own renewable systems to “vote with their wallets” by making a statement to government regulatory agencies, and by association, to state and federal legislators.

Green Energy Facts

• In the first six months of 2010, approximately 11 percent of domestically produced electricity in the U.S. was from green sources, an increase over 2009 numbers.
• Installed capacity of wind power across the country is sufficient to power nearly 10 million households.
• The largest solar thermal power station in the world is located in the Mojave Desert.
• The Geysers (Northern California) is the largest of geothermal energy production operation in the world.
• One-fourth of the land area in the U.S experiences winds that are strong enough to generate electricity for a price comparable to natural gas and coal.

Selecting a Green Electricity Service Provider

There is a growing group of electricity service providers, including companies like Green Mountain Energy (wind and solar power) and Clean Current (generation from ocean currents), that focus mostly or completely on renewable energy generation. Over time, companies like these will offer green electricity plans to consumers across the country.

Consumers who choose green electricity service providers put pressure on utility companies to:

• increase the amount of green energy they purchase from the pool, which lowers the amount of non-green energy they buy (so decreasing the amount of non-green energy they purchase);
• directly develop new green energy sources if insufficient are available; or
• or contract with a third party green electricity service provider to obtain renewable energy, which will support construction of more green energy facilities.

A key benefit of selecting a green electricity service provider is contributing to lowering the costs of renewable power. Currently, green electricity service providers are not necessarily cheap electricity providers and as a result consumers choosing green electricity service providers will pay higher rates. This is because renewable energy generation costs remain slightly higher than traditional generation costs. This is changing as government subsidies and advancing technologies decrease the costs related to generation. In fact, it is worth exploring green electricity options in your area as in some service areas the difference between standard electric rates and renewable electric rates is very small.