Solar Power

Maybe you support the idea of clean, renewable energy, but you're not quite ready to install a bunch of solar panels on your roof. Perhaps you don't have the resources right now to purchase an entire solar set-up, or your house doesn't have the roof area for adequate panels, or your roofline faces the wrong way. How can you support "green" energy like solar?

More and more programs are popping up around the country that allow people to purchase power from renewable sources like solar. Solar energy is a perfect choice for this type of "buy green" plan, because it does not produce emissions, generate any solid waste, or use any water.

Generation of electricity is the largest industrial polluter in our country today. Our world includes emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide, which we typically see as smog in the air. Water and soil are contaminated by mercury, lead, and nuclear waste. Solar power generation creates none of that!

So how can you buy into a cleaner future? Many utilities offer their customers the option to pay a premium on their electric bill to cover the cost of purchasing clean, sustainable energy. Since at this point most green energy costs a little more per kilowatt hour to produce, that premium supports those producing solar and other types of clean energy. Under this type of plan you would remain with your regular electric company, but at your request they would purchase some of their kilowatt hours from a solar or other sustainable producer.

In some areas of the country you can even choose from whom you purchase your power, much like you can choose which telephone company you want. In this situation you might actually change power companies.

A third option is a Renewable Energy Certificate, or REC, or "green tag". Under a green tag plan you purchase a credit that is usually equal to one kilowatt hour of electricity. This credit is generally purchased from a company other than your local power utility.

The credit purchases renewable electricity that's added to the regional or national power grid. In any of these plans, there is no way to "direct" the solar or green energy that you purchase directly into your home. The green electrons travel along the wires along with the electrons generated via the standard methods. The only way to "aim" solar energy at your house is with solar cells on your property.

But the purchase of green tags or other renewable energy products is the only way to make that type of energy production viable. Solar energy purchases spur on research and development, which should shorten the time necessary to bring the cost of solar energy (and other types of renewable power) down to the same level as standard power-maybe even below that.

Just think of a summer without smog, and the added cost seems minimal.