Want Sustainable Energy? Tell Your Power Company

Telling your electricity company to purchase electricity from sustainable sources instead of coal and nuclear power plants is the single most effective, cost efficient and fastest way to make a difference now. You can do it in about 60 seconds through your electricity company’s website.

Residential energy use accounts for 21 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States. As homeowners, we can make a real difference by choosing to power our homes with sustainable energy (solar, wind and methane). Fortunately, purchasing a wind turbine or solar panels isn’t the only way to make the switch. You simply have to let your utility company know that you want your energy to come from sustainable sources.

In order to meet the energy demands of its customers, utility companies purchase their electricity from the least expensive sources possible, allowing them to keep their costs down and their profits healthy. At the moment, sustainable sources are more expensive to purchase than traditional energy providers who create electricity using coal or nuclear power–so your utility company will not purchase solar, wind or methane generated energy unless you buy it first.

When you sign up for sustainable energy, your utility company then diverts your monthly electricity purchase from traditional suppliers to sustainable ones. As more people switch their electricity purchases to sustainable sources, utility companies will purchase less energy from traditional companies and more energy from sustainable ones. This simple act that truly takes about 60 seconds can have staggering results if enough homeowners make the switch.

For more information or to subscribe at the introductory price of $10 a year, go to positivelygreen.com. Positively Green magazine launched in 2008 as a quarterly women’s magazine that covers every aspect of green from eco-friendly vacations to green fashion to green health. With articles that don’t just explain the problems, they outline solutions for busy people who want to make the change but don’t have the time to research solutions.