[Lekooks] Renewable electricity at LCUUC

[Gerald Flakas]

The more I look into schemes like Arcadia Power and Energy For Tomorrow, where the customer pays a fee, or in the case of Arcadia, just signs up for their program, to get to claim they are using "renewable" electricity, the less I like them. These schemes use Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) for their programs.

A couple of articles about RECs:
First from Arcadia, diagramming how they work: https://blog.arcadiapower.com/how-recs-work/

Then a watchdog.org article about how they really work (or don't really work):
https://www.watchdog.org/issues/economy/renewable-energy-s-economic-model-collapsing-as-rec-prices-plummet/article_fbb4287e-9c8f-51c0-955b-a300b6e54076.html

Looks to me that the RECs are just a certification that somebody, somewhere, produced (and sold locally), a certain amount of electricity from a renewable source, then the certifications are sold to somebody else who claims the renewably-produced electricity went to them instead of the what they actually got from their local utility. So this is how states, businesses, and homeowners can claim they are getting renewable energy that may have been produced and consumed anywhere, including out-of-state. Looks like a shell game to me. 

Just my opinion, please feel free to comment if you see it any other way.

Gerry



-----Original Message-----
From: Kristin Sanden <kmksanden at gmail.com>
To: Gerald Flakas <gerflak at aol.com>
Cc: ataivalkoski <ataivalkoski at wi.rr.com>; dbriley105 <dbriley105 at aol.com>; lekooks <lekooks at lekook.org>
Sent: Mon, Apr 30, 2018 10:52 pm
Subject: Re: [Lekooks] Renewable electricity at LCUUC

Seems worth exploring more. I would support investing more into renewables if there is no “catch”. Pretty crazy that we have to pay money buy back renewable energy that we create!

On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 9:29 AM Gerald Flakas via Lekooks <lekooks at lekook.org> wrote:
I have heard about Arcadia Power from a number of sources. Apparently, they can arrange to supply 50% or 100% of your electricity from renewable sources, simply by signing up with them online. See the website https://www.arcadiapower.com/. This sounds almost too good to be true; do any of you have any experience with Arcadia Power, or know anyone who has?

I put this on the LCUUC Facebook page yesterday, but received no response. Either nobody read it, or understood it, or don't care. In the last case, I guess we shouldn't consider it.

We have our solar PV system which delivers 2/3 of our electricity consumption to the WE Energies grid, but the energy we receive from the grid via WE Energies is only 10% renewable and 90% from fossil fuels. The article mentioned Arcadia Power as a way to increase the renewable portion. Apparently the way it works is that the customer pays their utility bill to Arcadia, which claims to provide 50% (or 100% for a $0.015 / khw surcharge), and pays the balance owed to the WE Energies. Apparently, for no surcharge, Arcadia would provide 50% renewable electricity to us; if this is actually 1/3 of our electricity, our total renewable percentage, which is now about 70%, would be about 83%. If we paid the surcharge, which would amount to around $400 per year for us, LCUUC would be 100% renewable.

So again, is there any interest in LCUUC switching over to Arcadia, in particular paying the surcharge to be 100% renewable?
And do any of you have any experience with Arcadia, or can recommend someone who has?

Thanks,

Gerry Flakas

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Kristin Sanden
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