Recently, we started paying an electric bill again. It's a creeping case of too many devices -- water heater, stove, car, fridge, lights, toaster, blender, space heaters, humidifier, dehumidifier, computers, TV, hair clippers -- grabbing too few electrons from our rooftop solar panels. So, in order to stay on the renewable-energy train, I signed us up for the 100 percent green option in the Somerville Community Choice Electricity program. Now we pay a little extra per kilowatt-hour in exchange for clean energy.
Of course, the electricity powering my wife's electric toothbrush is not actually 100 percent green, but derived from a soup of sources including coal, methane gas, oil, large hydro-electric, nuclear power, solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro and anaerobic digestion of cow poop, among others. However, through a convoluted digital tool called the Renewable Energy Certificate (REC), I can now lay claim to purchasing the beneficent environmental attributes of an amount of renewable energy exactly equal to what we use at home. Simple as that. Easy-peasy.
Of course, the electricity powering my wife's electric toothbrush is not actually 100 percent green, but derived from a soup of sources including coal, methane gas, oil, large hydro-electric, nuclear power, solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro and anaerobic digestion of cow poop, among others. However, through a convoluted digital tool called the Renewable Energy Certificate (REC), I can now lay claim to purchasing the beneficent environmental attributes of an amount of renewable energy exactly equal to what we use at home. Simple as that. Easy-peasy.
Nah, it's confusing. And I'm skeptical. So I searched the Interweb, trying to figure out if purchasing RECs propels new construction of renewable-generation facilities or if it's a largely useless exercise in swapping green electrons and padding the profits of energy developers. Or somewhere in between, depending on this and that. A REC, I learned, is a market-based instrument that...well, read this analysis and watch this video from the EPA. In layman's terms, a REC is a virtual merit badge. When I was a Boy Scout, my mother sewed my badges on a green sash that I wore diagonally across my chest. Oh, how I prized my merit badge for orienteering, a sport sadly neglected by the International Olympic Committee, and wait a second! I pay MORE for green electricity, even though renewables are now cheaper than coal and oil? While most of my RECkless neighbors shell out LESS for the polluting stuff that's causing asthma attacks and summoning the gradual catastrophe that is climate change? That's ass-backwards, isn't it?
Yes, it is, and so is born another blog for another day.
Yes, it is, and so is born another blog for another day.
A REC can also be seen as a subsidy, or as an investment. It's born when a kilowatt hour of renewable energy is produced. The REC is then bought through channels either by a corporation, government entity or individual. In the course of lowering their carbon footprints, and pursuing lofty if hard-to-define net-zero goals, many corporations purchase RECs instead of actually going to the trouble of putting up solar panels or wind turbines. I mean, rich people don't clean their own pools, do they? Towns, however, especially residential ones without much available land for siting renewable energy facilities, will aggregate money from idealists/patsies like me to buy RECs from a green-energy supplier outside of town, as a means of addressing climate change and appeasing concerned voters.
Now, an aggregator can't buy RECs before a facility starts churning out green energy, but it can contractually promise to buy a developer's future RECS -- a promise, I'm told, that frees up capital for said construction. Got it? Also, the act of buying these RECs keeps them out of the grasping hands of your local utility -- Eversource, in these parts -- and that matters because in many states utilities are required to purchase a certain percentage of renewable energy (23 percent in Massachusetts, in 2023) in order to comply with the ever-increasing Renewable Portfolio Standard. Town REC purchases lower the supply of renewable energy sources with RECs for sale, thereby, again I'm told, incentivizing Eversource to finance or scrounge for new sources of renewable energy. Conceptually, that is. Theoretically.
All right, here comes the tricky part. There are two kinds of RECs, bundled and unbundled, and the unbundled ones arrive without any actual energy from the renewable energy source that sold you the RECs in the first place. Some critics say unbundled RECs lead to little or no Additionality (new green energy sources) and are prime examples of greenwashing. See how unbundled RECs are potentially dubious in this interesting, for energy nerds, article.
Now, an aggregator can't buy RECs before a facility starts churning out green energy, but it can contractually promise to buy a developer's future RECS -- a promise, I'm told, that frees up capital for said construction. Got it? Also, the act of buying these RECs keeps them out of the grasping hands of your local utility -- Eversource, in these parts -- and that matters because in many states utilities are required to purchase a certain percentage of renewable energy (23 percent in Massachusetts, in 2023) in order to comply with the ever-increasing Renewable Portfolio Standard. Town REC purchases lower the supply of renewable energy sources with RECs for sale, thereby, again I'm told, incentivizing Eversource to finance or scrounge for new sources of renewable energy. Conceptually, that is. Theoretically.
All right, here comes the tricky part. There are two kinds of RECs, bundled and unbundled, and the unbundled ones arrive without any actual energy from the renewable energy source that sold you the RECs in the first place. Some critics say unbundled RECs lead to little or no Additionality (new green energy sources) and are prime examples of greenwashing. See how unbundled RECs are potentially dubious in this interesting, for energy nerds, article.
"Additionality, by the way, makes me think of Wessonality! Ah, the good old days, when all we had to worry about was oily salad oil and nuclear Armageddon. Anyway: is it or is it not worthwhile to join your town's green electricity team, at a small premium? Would you be putting your money on the Right Side of History or getting gently scammed by well-intentioned do-gooders? Alas, I'm still waiting for a call-back from the smart, young woman at Green Energy Consumers Alliance (GECA), a non-profit that handles REC transactions for communities. She listened with great patience to my rambling REC inquiries and is now "checking with her manager" regarding the status of my particular RECs as bundled or unbundled or kept in a kind of loose swaddle...but in the end, what will that data point really tell me? The answer to all my questions, as usual, appears to be somewhere in between, depending on this and that.
I'll just have to accept that for now, I RECkon.
P.S. Several days later I heard back from my industrious contact at GECA. My RECs, indeed, are unbundled, "but they are from New England generation, so they have a positive impact on our grid." She continued: "What we don’t like is when a company in New England buys cheap unbundled RECs from Texas or some other place where the supply of RECs far exceeds the demand for RECs. Buying those RECs doesn’t change the market. No one in Texas is building projects to earn money from selling the RECs to New England, but they will happily take the money."
Regarding Eversouce's accountability to the RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard, mentioned above): "If they cannot find enough RECs, they...have to pay an Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP) to the state. The state then uses that money to pay for clean energy projects." Okay, the acronyms are really piling up here, so I will leave the question of whether it's cheaper to pay an ACP than follow the RPS to a DFF (Day in the Far Future).
I'll just have to accept that for now, I RECkon.
P.S. Several days later I heard back from my industrious contact at GECA. My RECs, indeed, are unbundled, "but they are from New England generation, so they have a positive impact on our grid." She continued: "What we don’t like is when a company in New England buys cheap unbundled RECs from Texas or some other place where the supply of RECs far exceeds the demand for RECs. Buying those RECs doesn’t change the market. No one in Texas is building projects to earn money from selling the RECs to New England, but they will happily take the money."
Regarding Eversouce's accountability to the RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard, mentioned above): "If they cannot find enough RECs, they...have to pay an Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP) to the state. The state then uses that money to pay for clean energy projects." Okay, the acronyms are really piling up here, so I will leave the question of whether it's cheaper to pay an ACP than follow the RPS to a DFF (Day in the Far Future).