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It's easy being green
Posted: Nov 02, 2007 in Things to do
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I was pleasantly surprised the last time I received my electric bill to find that IPL is offering customers the opportunity to opt for green power. Of course, it's at a premium, but the difference is so small that it really shouldn't affect people much. I expect my bill to go up by about $2, which, to know that 100 percent of my energy is green and sustainable, is a price I'm willing to pay.
According to their Web site:
Green Power Option for Renewable Energy
At IPL, we understand that an increasing number of our customers would like to purchase electricity generated from clean, renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, geothermal or biomass generation (including landfill gas). The Green Power Option allows you to specify an amount equal to 100%, 50%, 25% or 10% of your monthly electricity to be generated by these environmentally friendly, renewable resources.
If you choose to enroll in the Green Power Option, you will pay a small premium in addition to IPL's standard, regulated rate. This premium reflects IPL's cost to purchase the renewable energy. The premium may vary depending upon the purchases made. The current Green Power premium is only $0.001913 per kilowatt-hour (less than 2/10th of a cent) and represents renewable energy purchased from a Minnesota wind farm and Indiana landfill gas generation plants. At this premium, a typical residential customer using 1000 kilowatt-hours in a month and enrolled at the 100% level would pay an additional $1.91 on their IPL electric bill.
The Green Power Option is available to both residential and commercial/industrial IPL customers.
I love it when it's easy to do something good like that. My computer monitor is broken and I have to take it to Virtual Scavengers. For people who haven't ever heard of them, they take your old computer and rework it -- and in the process train people in "underserved" communities in how to work on computers.
www.vscavengers.org.
I was shocked when I switched over to 100% green power.. My bill DROPPED $30.. big ups to trash power. It may be because I switched all my light bulbs to energy savers though.
Oooh. That's a nice surprise. I need to go through and do that as well! Still waiting for my first bill.
Next on my list -- winterizing. Wonder if I can get my landlord to put in a programmable thermostat to keep my heating costs manageable.
I installed a programmable thermostat and I was honestly disappointed.. I mean it works, but I didn't see any savings on my gas bill. I'm sticking with my space heater as long as I can this year.
I love it when it's easy to do something good like that. My computer monitor ...
Hey Jenny, I build Virtual Scavenger's website when I was 19 and working for NPower Indiana. I think I have come a long way since then huh? They are a great organization. I spent one whole summer doing what they do, although not with them, and let me tell you, patching together a whole bunch of PC's out of pieces parts can be challenging.
My only questions about this renewable energy thing are:
How do you know they are actually giving you renewable energy?
How is it that landfill gas is considered renewable? I do agree that this is a crafty way of generating extra energy, but to consider it a renewable detracts from our responsibility to reduce and eliminate unusable trash as a byproduct of our culture. We shouldn't plan on 'renewing' landfills. Thoughts?
I think that it's a numbers game, Doug. Essentially, whatever the demand is what the amount of green energy they have to purchase. But it's a good question -- how do we know it's actually being done? I don't know. But landfill gases I think are continual and won't run out any time soon, regardless of whether we're conserving or not. Those are things that are already established and aren't going anywhere, no matter what we do. I don't think the energy generated from it really detracts or conflicts with any efforts to conserve and not add to the landfills. At least, not in my mind.