For nearly two years, Rhode Island residents and small business owners have been able to offer financial support for renewable energy generation through GreenUp, a program that allows National Grid customers to pay extra to have the electricity they use replaced with “clean” energy.
But that option isn’t available for larger energy consumers.
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Now People’s Power & Light – a nonprofit alliance of energy consumers, whose GreenStart program procures “green” energy for the GreenUp program – has developed a new program for larger businesses. It’s called the New England Wind Fund.
“Businesses are trying to reduce their carbon emissions more and more, because of global warming,” said Erich Stephens, executive director of PP&L. “Whatever your motivation for using green electricity is, this program would apply.”
One possible client for the new fund is the Chow Fun Food Group, which operates XO Steak House, Big Fish, 10 Prime Steak & Sushi and the new Citron, all in Providence. The group tried to use GreenStart, but because of National Grid’s rules, it was deemed too large to participate.
“We’re trying to get greener, so we tried to switch,” said Lynn DeTomasi, assistant to Chow Fun owner John Elkhay. Since the company can’t join GreenStart, she said, the Wind Fund would be something it would definitely consider.
“If we don’t do something soon, the Earth won’t be able to handle all of this,” she said. “What we do does impact a lot of people.”
National Grid spokesman David Graves said the company had restricted large businesses from the GreenUp program because there was no need for it in that part of the market.
Large customers already had options when it came to other – including green – electricity suppliers. Residential and small accounts, on the other hand, needed help to gain access to those types of competitive suppliers. GreenUp gave it to them.
But Constellation NewEnergy Inc. – an independent supplier of renewable energy in Rhode Island – said every new program helps.
“To have a new entry like [the Wind Fund] offering innovative solutions, I think that’s promising,” said Peter Kelly-Detwiler, New England regional director of energy technology services for CNE. “I think it’s good when there’s a variety out there, because the more people there are providing awareness, the better we all are for that.”
The New England Wind Fund works on the same basic idea as GreenStart, but with a twist.
With GreenStart, customers sign up with PP&L. They agree to pay an extra 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour costs (the average home uses 500KWh per month) above their basic electricity to National Grid, which then passes on their payment for the energy (as opposed to the transmission costs) to PP&L. This guarantees that the energy those customers use will be replaced in the grid – the pool of energy created by electric companies – with clean, renewable energy from sources such as solar, wind and small hydro-electric plants.
The new program does not work through National Grid’s billing system.
Instead, PP&L takes the Wind Fund customer’s energy payment, including a premium, and buys electricity on the open market. The premium is then placed in a fund managed by a private charitable foundation, to be used as seed capital for the construction of wind power generation facilities.
The purpose of putting money into a fund – as opposed to simply buying wind power directly from existing suppliers (none of whom are operating in Rhode Island at the moment) – is to help get wind power projects built in this area.
According to Stephens, a big stumbling block for wind projects has been the difficulty of acquiring financing, when there is no tangible proof that someone is going to buy the product.
“They can use this to help get project financing,” he said, “because we would enter into a contract to buy the output” once the clean generating capacity was constructed.
“For every $50, we’ll make sure at least one megawatt hour is put back on the grid,” Stephens said. (One megawatt hour is enough electricity to run a typical New England home for two months.)
Though Stephens said PP&L will guarantee the fund’s money will be placing local wind energy on the grid within 10 years, he expects that goal would be reached much sooner, considering that some contracts already are in place.
“PP&L has an agreement through which it will be buying some of the output of the Berkshire Wind project, located on Brodie Mountain in western Mass.,” Stephens wrote in an e-mail.
That project, with 10 turbines, is already under construction and is expected to be completed in the early months of 2007.
The goal of the Wind Fund, Stephens said, is to have a portfolio of projects in various stages that are being supported by the fund and can be tracked by the donors.
“There will be a quarterly newsletter that shows what we’ve done with your money,” he said.
Stephens said he believes this new project will provide both the support needed to get new projects built and a way for large companies to get greener.
“It’s an opportunity for businesses who want to reduce their impact on the environment – particularly on climate change – to make a real, direct impact on getting renewable energy projects built in New England,” he said.
