Sep 24th 2008Green Power in WV
Appalachian Power has started a new program where customers can purchase renewable energy credits (RECs) to offset their carbon footprint. Renewable energy credits are created whenever a renewable energy generator makes power from renewable resources. Basically, when a wind generation station sells power to the grid, it generates these credits which are certified and sold to individuals or entities like AEP. Credits are unique so when I purchase RECs, I know that the power we bought was generated at a renewable source.
We took a vacation trip to Canaan Valley 2 years ago and were able to see some wind turbines up close and personal. They are incredible and massive and pretty neat landscape features actually…sort of like flowers springing from the mountain tops. 
Of course, I don’t live super near them but I certainly liked seeing them in action. The Eastern mountains of WV are a great location for wind turbines and I am so excited to be able to buy power from them or similar sources. WV is very much a coal state and that is fine (though I think mountain top removal is despicable), but I am particularly excited to be a part of helping to make WV an energy state. We can make clean energy here. So, we are planning to purchase RECs to offset our power consumption and make our stay on the 3rd rock from the sun a little cleaner. We currently average 1447 kwh per month so we will purchase to offset that. Our next goal, then, is to look around our house and find ways to reduce that number. Our hot water and oven are electric and I am not compelled to replace those items. We will likely have to address our normal patterns of usage and look at our other appliances as well. It should be interesting but will pay off!
We buy renewable energy too. And we have turbines popping up all over around here. Eric LOVES them. He wants to work on them!
I just signed us up for recs to cover our average usage and it added $21 to our bill. I know not everyone can swing that, but in the grand scheme of things, that is a pretty reasonable price for us. It’s also a great motivation (as if reducing power consumption and the old electric bill wasn’t enough) for us to find our waste and change our behavior to lower the bills. It just sort of clicked with me when I signed us up to buy the power. Anyhow, I know lots of people don’t want to have turbines around but the ones I saw were really cool, not loud, and did not leave carrion all over the ground underneath. I don’t think they ruined the view one bit either. Heck, side-by-side with a coal fired plant, there is no comparison environment-wise.
I am mesing around with making a homemade turbine to run some stuff at our house. We’ll see how that goes. The technology is simple though I doubt we’d be able to go off grid with what I can build. Still, if we can take a few rooms off grid, why not. I’ll post more on that effort as I get something interesting done with it. I am with your husband though…turbines in general are very cool!
I’d love to be able to buy green energy credits, but they aren’t available from our soul-sucking power company.
I love windmills, too. They just tried to build a huge windfarm off of Cape Cod, which would have been amazing, but all the rich people thought it would ruin their view so they defeated it. Boo!
I am surprised that WV is the first and, so far, only AEP state to be able to buy these credits. We are so coal oriented that it is surprising to me. Anyow, I think in time that more places will come “online” with it. I am hoping that a bunch of folks here will buy in and catch someone’s attention. I don’t get the ruined view thing. Heck, there are already so may powerlines and billboards, etc, that I don’t know if there is much not ruined. And compare the view of a win turbine to a coal fired plant…I’ll take turbine any day. Most of the ones off the coast are far enough away to not even be an issue if I understand it correctly. Anyhow, keep on watching. I htink this will spread if people will sign on where it is available.