For a couple decades now, we've offered consumers an easy way to have their electricity usage met by renewable energy. That's simple — just plug some wind and solar into the grid. But how about air travel? Although progress is being made on electric planes (you read that right), it will be a while before you get on a jet powered by batteries. But we need to mitigate the impacts of flying because those impacts are real, huge, and growing.
About twenty years ago, our non-profit organization stepped into the voluntary green power market, hoping to speed up the pace of wind & solar development. A lot has changed for the better since then, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
Did you miss the “What’s New with Drive Green” webinar, but still want to know what’s new with Drive Green? We have you covered. Below is a brief overview of what we went over during our February 12th webinars.
Edited by Mal Skowron
Holly Reid and Rich Shaw live in North Carolina. They have driven a Prius since 2006, but their ever-growing interests in reducing energy consumption drove them to consider purchasing an all-electric vehicle. They heard about the Drive Green program from their daughter, Indy, who worked at Green Energy Consumers Alliance in 2018.
Holly and Rich explored their options using the Drive Green webpage and decided to purchase an EV—even if it meant traveling up to New England to complete the deal and driving it back to North Carolina. And although their small town hosts six EV charging stations, the Reid-Shaws' plan to charge their vehicle at home using solar energy from the rooftop panels they installed on their historic home (ca. 1795).
The tax man cometh. But if you participate in our Green Powered program, you can take a break. It’s a small one, but well deserved.
Given the work that we do on green energy, people frequently ask us what we think about Tesla and Elon Musk. Because there’s so much to Tesla and its main man, we have several separate but related points to make.
Here’s some news! Our organization has legally changed its name to Green Energy Consumers Alliance, Inc. This single new name better reflects our nonprofit mission: to harness the power of energy consumers to speed the transition to a low-carbon future.
By way of history, Mass Energy Consumers Alliance (Mass Energy) and People’s Power & Light were once two separate nonprofit organizations. Mass Energy actually began as the Boston Fuel Consortium in 1982, while People’s Power & Light started in 2002. Pursuing similar missions, we merged in 2006 as Energy Consumers Alliance of New England, but continued to operate with separate brands in each state until this week.
Been hearing from "green electricity" suppliers like CleanChoice Energy? You want to support the generation of electricity from renewable sources, but how do you know if a green power program will use your dollars to speed our transition to clean energy? How would you know whether your purchase of green power is actually contributing to shifting the mix of electricity that powers our electric grid away from fossil fuels?
These are valid questions that we, as a non-profit energy organization working in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and offering a program that allows you to make the switch to renewable energy, get asked every day. So here it is: Green Power Bootcamp, in a blog.
Solar projects have been popping up all over Rhode Island. This has been due to the enhancement of the Renewable Energy Standard and the Renewable Energy Growth program, as well as a recent call from Governor Gina Raimondo to have 1,000 Megawatts of renewable energy within the state by the end of 2020. We are excited about the possibilities these policy measures create for new, properly-sited projects.
At Green Energy Consumers, we talk a lot about the importance of energy efficiency and conservation. But, for a few hours every year, reducing our energy usage becomes especially important: on the hottest and coldest days of the year, energy use is the highest and electricity is dramatically more expensive and polluting. These high-demand days are called peak days, and we’re calling on our members to help us Shave the Peak by taking straightforward steps to reduce energy usage for a few hours on these days.
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