[ausev] Austin Energy Green Choice...

[John Penry at Texrocks]

Good points, Claire.
Living in San Antonio, I tried to get CPS to admit that their Windtricity 
marketing was leading people to think that they are getting wind power and 
their neighbors get coal fired electricity.  I asked the how they did it.
I did visit the website, and found nothing that told me how CPS directs 
windmill electricity to my house, instead of electricity produced by other 
means.  How is it split?

If you were selling apples, and you had a basket of Granny Smith Apples, and 
a basket of Delicious Apples, I could choose to pay more for the Granny 
Smith apples, because I would get them from the Granny Smith basket.  But if 
I cut the apples into pieces, and made a Waldorf Salad, you couldn't sell 
two identical plates of salad and call one of them a Granny Smith Waldorf 
Salad.

How can you charge more for Wind electricity?  How do you separate it?

They gave me a long answer, not a straight one.  So much for CPS.

But, I thought the wording on the Austin Energy site sounded a bit more like 
it was a rate lock-in, which is all these programs are.

I did some research on the coal we use in Texas.
The cost of coal at the mouth of a PRB mine is approximately $5/ton
whereas by the time it is shipped to Texas the cost is approximately 
$25/ton. This implies
that the cost of shipping the coal by rail constitutes the majority of the 
cost of the
coal. In addition, current rail capacity is not unlimited and therefore, a 
major increase
in unit price can be expected.

So, locking in a rate until 2022 is not a bad thing, because the price for 
coal energy will continue to rise as the cost of shipping the coal by rail 
increases.

John in Seguin
(Not a Customer of either CPS or Austin Energy, We get to pay for Natural 
Gas)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Claire Sorenson" <csorenson1 at austin.rr.com>
To: "'AustinEV News Announcements and General Discussion'" 
<ausev at austinev.org>
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 8:32 PM
Subject: Re: [ausev] Austin Energy Green Choice...


>I hope I am not straying from our forum here.  If we are looking for 
>cleaner
> sources of energy for our electric cars, there are some interesting things
> to note about the GreenChoice program.  Not to be a wet blanket, but we 
> all
> use the energy from the wind farms.  Those who participate in the
> GreenChoice program pay more and that allows more green power to be added 
> to
> the grid to replace fossil fuels for all Austin Energy customers to use. 
> I
> think it is a great program.  But, at first I thought that by 
> participating
> in the Green Choice program it meant my house would then run on 100% green
> energy.  I am curious to see if in the end the green energy actually
> replaces fossil fuels or just adds more total energy to the grid.  Either
> way it is still a good program.  I would rather have a percentage of our
> grid run by wind power than none at all.  Little by little we will ge 
> there.
>
> You might also look up Green Mountain.  They buy only green energy from
> various sources and sell it to Texas Consumers.  The catch is that their
> service coverage is still limited.  See the website below.  You can plug 
> in
> your zip code and see if they serve your area.
>
> http://www.electricitytexas.com/greenmountain/index.html?mrc=Ggreen+mountain
> &9gtype=search&9gkw=green%20mountain&9gad=585420915
>
> CS Unlimited
> Claire Sorenson
> Ph: 512-689-5911
> Fax: 512-282-9942
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ausev-bounces at austinev.org [mailto:ausev-bounces at austinev.org] On
> Behalf Of Brian Lasseter
> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 5:13 PM
> To: AustinEV News Announcements and General Discussion
> Subject: [ausev] Austin Energy Green Choice...
>
> For those who want to power their electric car with power from Texas wind
> farms...  Now is your chance.  Batch-5 GreenChoice energy became
> available today.   GreenChoice power has been unavailable to new
> customers for the past two years... since January 12th, 2006.
>
>
> http://www.austinenergy.com/Energy%20Efficiency/Programs/Green%20Choice/inde
> x.htm
>
>
> --
> TTFN,
> Brian "Lasso" Lasseter
>
>  ·  (512)736-1677  ·  AIM:digininja  ·  ICQ:2238123  ·  MSN:azoreg  ·
> "No Sane man will dance."   -Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
>
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