Green energy initiative is simple, yet complex

A simplified explanation of the Green My Power program. SUSTAINABLE WESTCHESTER

By JEFF MORRIS 

The Bedford Town Board learned about a new green energy initiative available following the demise of Westchester Power.

They heard a presentation Aug. 11 by Dan Welsh, now director of clean energy for Sustainable Westchester. He previously was in charge of the consortium’s Westchester Power program, which ended last November. 

“Basically the goal here was to modestly plug the gap that we felt” with the end of that program, he said.

Since the end of Westchester Power, those interested in supporting green energy have had to individually sign up with energy service companies, ESCOs, that supply non-fossil fuel generated electricity. They could also sign up for Community Solar, another Sustainable Westchester program that allows participants to receive a portion of the savings generated by a solar project. That program guarantees savings of up to 5% on their electricity costs, which are applied directly to the participant’s monthly bill.

The new program, Green My Power, requires a monthly subscription, but Welsh said it can work concurrently with Community Solar, resulting in a net break-even while receiving renewable energy. Welsh described the new initiative as pretty straightforward and simple, “and yet there are elements that may take some thinking about.”

What it is

Welsh said Green My Power is a collaboration with PowerMarket, the technology platform provider for the Community Solar program to which many people already subscribe.

Green My Power is a voluntary program that, according to Welsh, “is a simple way for people to get back on the renewable energy horse and help us continue towards our climate goals.” 

Basically, he said, it is a monthly purchase of renewable energy certificates, and that makes it both simple and complex: a simple monthly subscription, but one that requires an explanation of what renewable energy certificates are. 

“A renewable energy certificate is basically the official way of accounting for the injection of clean energy into the grid by a clean energy generator,” Welsh said. “You need to be able to record that.”

Renewable Energy Certificates, or RECs, are the basis of the Green My Power program. SUSTAINABLE WESTCHESTER

Each renewable energy certificate, or REC, is equal to 1,000 kilowatt hours. Welsh said that is, more or less, the amount of a decent-size house’s monthly usage. He said the program attempts to simplify things by providing different levels of participation, rather than having to submit electricity bills and match them exactly. 

“We've come up with numbers which approximate sort of the typical usage for an apartment dweller, modest mid-sized home or a larger home, to make it easy to just jump in that way,” Welsh said. 

Subscriptions would be $4 a month for an apartment, $6 for a typical home, and $12 for a large home.

The program works with the Center for Resource Solutions, which independently verifies that each REC has a unique serial number and is publicly retired, and is thus “Green-e certified.”

Under the hood

Welsh noted that when the Westchester Power program was operating, they were actually buying RECs when they bought green power. 

“You just didn't see it because we were buying green power from a supplier — and they, underneath the hood, were buying the RECs. The RECs are what give you the ownership rights to the environmental benefits.” 

He said they never had to “get into the weeds” on this because if you’re buying the supply, you’re buying the whole package, and it’s all green energy.

But, said Welsh, what they’re doing now means you don't have to deal with the markets and wonder if they’re going up or down, or whether you’re doing well against the utility. 

“We’re just buying the REC portion, and then you’re staying with your utility,” he said.

There is, however, another factor that both adds to and lessens the complexity: there are national RECs, and New York RECs, and they’re not the same. 

“New York state has its own registry, and if you’re going to buy a green power product from an ESCO in New York it has to be through the New York state registry,” Welsh said. “But since we're not limited by that — we're not buying the power in that way — we can buy the national RECs.” 

He said these are actually the same RECs that they bought when Westchester Power started, but then a few years later New York said that for an ESCO product, you had to buy New York state registered RECs. Green My Power is not limited to that, but the state asked them to run a disclaimer indicating they’re buying national RECs, which just means they cannot be used to count toward the state clean energy standard. “Otherwise it’s actually pretty simple,” Welsh said. “People sign up, they’re buying RECs, they don’t need anything special to do that; they just go online and it’s a simple form.”

Double the impact

According to Welsh, Power Market is making a large tranche of Community Solar capacity available directly to people who participate in this program in both the Con Ed and NYSEG districts. He said Green My Power is an overtly premium program, with about a 1-cent difference per kilowatt hour, “but if you sign up for Community Solar in parallel, you're pretty much canceling that out, and you’re doubling your impact.”

Welsh said Sustainable Westchester will stay in the middle in terms of interfacing with the public, outreach and customer service. He doesn’t expect that customer service will be anywhere near as complex as it got at times with Westchester Power, because this is an opt-in, voluntary program; there aren’t any concerns about whether people do or don’t receive notification letters. 

While there are different levels to choose from, Welsh said another option is to match your power supply exactly. You would be asked for your Con Ed or NYSEG account number, and they will obtain your history from the utility and plot it out to match your usage. He reiterated that you can cancel at any time. 

It is simple to get started, Welsh said; the link is up on sustainablewestchester.org, and people can sign up today if they want to. But, he added, once given the nod, they’re ready to work together with municipalities on publicity, for a more explicit launch.