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March 1, 2005
It Is Easy Being Green, Public Power Magazine, March-April 2005
| For More Information |
Tim Blodgett
Hometown Connections
303-526-4515
tblodgett@hometownconnections.com
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Convenient Way to Bring Renewable Energy to Customers
“Our community has always operated at the leading edge on energy efficiency,” said Valerie Wax Carr, director of public service, city of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. “We provide free energy-efficient light bulbs. And 97 percent of our customers participate in our curbside recycling collection service. Therefore, when we learned about public power’s nationwide green pricing program, we saw it as a natural fit for our utility and the decision to participate was an easy one.”
Hometown Connections and Green Mountain Energy Co. offer a renewable electricity service called Nature’s Energy, designed specifically for public power utilities. Hometown Connections negotiates lower purchase prices from industry suppliers on behalf of public power. Green Mountain Energy Co. sells cleaner electricity generated from sources such as wind, solar, water, geothermal, biomass and landfill gas to residential, business, institutional and governmental customers.
Cuyahoga Falls learned about the Nature’s Energy program through its joint action agency, American Municipal Power-Ohio. As the local sales representative for Hometown Connections, AMP-Ohio is promoting this renewable electricity program to its 108 member communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan.
Consumers and businesses in participating AMP-Ohio communities are eligible to purchase Nature’s Energy electricity generated from renewable resources.
Purchasing Nature’s Energy electricity for one year can help prevent as much carbon dioxide emitted into the air as a car produces in almost 19,000 miles. By demanding cleaner electricity, customers also help encourage the development of new, cleaner sources of energy in the future. Nature’s Energy offers electricity generated from 100 percent renewable sources: wind, hydroelectric and landfill gas.
At 1.3 to 1.5 cents more per kWh than customers are paying now, it costs about $8 to $10 more per month for the average customer. Commercial customers can buy one-MWh monthly blocks of electricity for $13 to $15 per block.
Electricity is not delivered to the customer from a specific generation facility. The customer’s purchase causes renewable energy equal to the household’s annual electricity purchases to be delivered to regional power grids.
After an eligible community joins the program, the local municipal electric utility markets Nature’s Energy electricity to its customers, using promotional materials provided by AMP-Ohio. The fee for the program appears as a line item on the monthly utility bill. Each community sends AMP-Ohio a monthly report on the number of customers in the program, total kWh sold, and cancelled customers. AMP-Ohio consolidates these reports and forwards them to Green Mountain Energy. The funds associated with the program are also sent from the utilities to AMP-Ohio monthly, for the agency to forward to Green Mountain Energy.
“Our utility operates a coal-fired plant that will be in use for many years to come,” said Kevin Maynard, general manager of Wyandotte, Mich., Department of Municipal Service. “Our citizens are concerned about environmental issues, and we think it’s important to show our support for pro-environment activities. We investigated the creation of our own green pricing program, but it would require a huge amount of work for one utility. Thankfully, the service package offered through Hometown Connections and AMP-Ohio makes it very easy to launch and operate a green pricing program. There are no up-front costs. AMP-Ohio coordinates the administration. And the team at Green Mountain Energy is terrific. They met with us during the planning stages and provided artwork and language for our bill stuffers, ads, news release, and Web site.”
Wyandotte is allocating funds from the Nature’s Energy program for the installation at a local high school of a photovoltaic cell and software to monitor its performance. “Our customers appreciate knowing they are supporting a project that will benefit students in the community as well as the use of renewable resources across the power grid,” Maynard said.
Bowling Green, Ohio, Municipal Utilities has been conducting its own local green pricing program for the past four years, said Utilities Director Daryl Stockburger. With an approximate 3 percent participation rate, only a small fraction of the city’s renewable energy resources were used for the local green pricing program. The Nature’s Energy program provides the opportunity to sell all of the green tags from Bowling Green’s share of several green power projects into an expanded municipal market for green energy. Bowling Green transferred its green pricing program to the Nature’s Energy program on Dec. 1, 2004. During the first four weeks in the new program, participation increased by approximately 20 percent.
“The AMP-Ohio and Hometown Connections endorsement was a deciding factor in making the decision to participate in the Nature’s Energy program through Green Mountain Energy Company,” said Stockburger.
“Our research told us we needed to establish a green pricing program,” said AMP-Ohio President Marc Gerken. “We diligently reviewed the available options and the Hometown Connections/ Green Mountain Energy Co. program was clearly the best choice for our members. This is a valuable partnership that responds to a consumer demand and is efficiently implemented by local utilities.”
See Hometown Connections and GMEC sites for more info.
• Hometown Connections
• Green Mountain Energy Company
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