photo credit: flickr Finstr
Let’s face it: as green as we’d like to be, there is no getting around consuming energy in the home. Anyone know of someone living “off the grid” in suburban North Jersey? Me neither. (Solar panels are our long-term aspiration…but that is a different and much more expensive story altogether.)
In thinking about our power source, I remembered reading something from the power company a while back about alternate sources of energy, so I looked into it again. Through PSE&G and NJCleanEnergy.com, you can pay a little extra and opt for renewable energy, without much effort at all.
The way it works is that we choose between three different renewable energy options (15-100%) that include wind or hydro power. We’re charged an extra few cents per kilowatt hour, and it’s all done through our normal PSE&G bill. The power company then puts that amount of energy (equal to our monthly electric usage) from renewable sources into the power grid. While we can’t be sure that same energy powers our home, we do know that our electricity usage is covered by renewable sources. We’re also helping to boost the production of renewable energy, which just makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
To illustrate, we are selecting the option through Green Mountain Energy Company, which will account for 100% of our monthly electric usage. We pay 2 cents extra per kilowatt hour, which they tell us should average out to $11.60 more per month, if we use 580 kWh per month. It comes from 50% wind and 50% small hydro power. Not too shabby for the cost of a bottle of vino.
