How does buying Renewable Energy Credits help increase the amount of renewable energy?
In most electricity markets, new clean, renewable energy costs more to produce than fossil fuel energy. This difference is primarily due to subsidies that fossil fuel industries receive. However, to remain competitive, renewable energy producers must sell their energy to the grid at conventional market prices. All electricity is the same once it hits the grid, so traditionally consumers have not seen any reason to pay more when fossil fuel energy turns on the lights the same way that wind energy does. One solution to help open the market to renewable technologies is the sale of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). A green energy provider (such as the Stateline Wind Farm) is credited with one REC for every 1,000 kilowatt-hours or 1 megawatt-hour of electricity it produces. (For reference, an average residential customer consumes approximately 800 kWh in a month.) An independent agency (such as the Center for Resource Solution through their Green-e program) verifies and certifies the renewab
