How do you encourage the use of “green power” in a state like Pennsylvania that has limited renewable energy resources?
Green-e certified power products must derive at least 50 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. In California, Green-e certified products have won the lion’s share of the growing competitive power market. For states like Pennsylvania, Green-e is working on a mechanism to include energy efficiency as part of its certification program.
The program would work like this: power marketers would obtain energy savings by investing in efficiency measures in a given service area and customer type. These “negawatts” could then be used as part of the marketer’s certification requirements. For example, if the marketer sells one million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in a year, 500,000 of them would have to be “green”. If the marketer can buy 400,000 kWh of wind power and 100,000 of energy efficiency savings, he would qualify under the Green-e program.
Green-e Plus would allow marketers to offer energy efficiency above and beyond their 50 percent-green requirement through co-marketing agreements with Energy Star equipment manufacturers and other marketing innovations.
Alliance to Save Energy:
Bill Prindle: bprindle@ase.org
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Green-e: http://www.green-e.org
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