energy supply, con edison alternative

[dr.strangelove]

Originally Posted by hominamad

Thanks Kensington - that's a great explanation. The thing I still don't understand is, if it's all the same energy, then what does it mean when you say you can buy from companies that use more green energy, etc? If my neighbor is paying for a plan that uses all coal, and I'm using all solar, we're still getting the same electricity. So what are you really buying then?

Supply is based on purchases. If 1,000,000 users immediately buy from a green source, the following month that coal producer will be told by Con Ed they are decreasing the amount of energy they need to purchase. The coal user will either find another buyer, or produce less energy. Producing less energy means reducing the amount of coal they burn, and in turn purchase. It means running the plant either less hours or at a lower efficiency. It costs money to convert coal into power. If they can not sell it, they will produce less of it. Now there are other costs of this, like the reduction in workforce up and down the supply chain, but the theory is that those reductions are replaced by new creations of workforce units in the green supply chain.

But the point you are missing seems to be that coal based production of power is not an absolute. Its a business just like any other. They produce power that they can sell. If they are not selling the power they produce, they cut back on the production. When large communities do something like this, it certainly can cause an impact on production.

If the cost is the same to the end consumer, I don't see while anyone will care. With solar and win production costs in large scale dropping, who cares if the power you use to turn on a lightbulb is from a wind turbine or a coal plant. If it costs more, I certainly understand why someone would care.

Also, the Opt Out signs mentioned above are for the State testing issue, not the electricity.

[sdcity]

okay I did some looking at my bill and decided to stick with the new power supplier. It's kind of a gamble in that since it's a fixed rate, you could save money if it's a hot summer. I was paying con edison 10-13 cents a kWhr last summer. However, on cooler months, my bill was like 4-5 cents a KWH. This new supplier is fixed at a little over 7 cents a kWh.

I wonder if anything stops me from using this supplier over the summer and then switching back to con edison's 4-5 cents kwH in the fall?

[sdcity]

Also, I want to point out this is an immediate increase to your bill. I think the rate for me is 4-5 cents a kWh right now and this will almost double it! But in the summer, I am hoping to make up for it.