100% renewable energy

I’ve been working on the best way to green my power consumption for a couple years now, since my utility, Eversource (or is it Nstar, I can’t remember which name they go by now), got rid of its clean energy option. Along comes the City of Somerville, who put together a community choice aggregation program, which will go live in July. They sent out mailers to all residents last weekend.

Basically, the city arranged for a bulk purchase of power at a fixed price for 30 months. The default choice buys power with 5% more renewable energy than the state mandates. But the state’s mandate is fairly modest, something like 12% now and 20% by 2020, rising one percentage point per year thereafter. That portfolio doesn’t become 100% renewable in the year 2100. Even Somerville’s 5% above the state mandate gets to 100% pretty damn slowly.

Today, I upgraded my electricity supply to the 100% renewable option. It locks me into slightly higher rates for the duration of the 30 month program. But it creates additionality in renewables generation, which is important. And, by the way, I’m still looking into community solar.