What are Renewable Energy Certificates?
Renewable Energy Certificates are a new and innovative tool that allow companies, organizations, and individuals to purchase renewable energy without installing expensive solar panels on their roof or building a power line to connect themselves to a wind farm. As a result, purchasing RECs are the cheapest and easiest way to "go green" or "carbon neutral."
Here's how they work. Renewable energy generators.. wind farms, solar panels, biomass facilities, etc. are issued a Renewable Energy Certificate for every unit of electricity they produce. Their electricity flows to the grid, but they are free to sell the RECs to whoever they wish. Whoever purchases the REC can claim to have purchased renewable energy. In many states, utilities are required to purchase a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, and do it through purchasing RECs for this percent of their electricity demand.
An aggregate effect
Let's take a look at an example, and show where you fit in with Village Green. In figure number 1 below, the utility is meeting its requirement to purchase 20 percent renewable energy.
Now let's see what happens if you purchase 10 RECs through Village Green.
Because you purchased RECs, you are the legal purchaser of the renewable energy, not the utility. As a result, 10 of the units from the wind farm don't count towards meeting the utility's requirement, so it needs to buy even more renewable energy and less fossil fuel energy, as you can see in figure 3.
Notice that the new amount of renewables it purchases (10 more units) is exactly equal to the amount of RECs you purchased! And by teaming up with people in your community, together we can make a large difference.
Where does Village Green get its RECs?
Village Green has partnered with a number of renewable energy producers in the Bay Area and Northern California to bring you Renewable Energy Certificates directly from the source of renewable generation. Village Green's RECs come from solar arrays in Napa, San Jose, and Chico. Your home's power comes from the sun! Every three months, we issue a report to all of our customers showing them exactly where their renewable energy comes from.
Who else is purchasing RECs?
Companies, communities, and individuals across America are already purchasing renewable energy through RECs. See the links below for more information.
