San Francisco, CA — Last year, Green-e saw huge jumps in sales of renewable energy it has certified along with many other increases, from the number of utilities and states involved with its programs to the number of customers buying renewable energy credits.
The Green-e Energy division of the company, founded in 1997, certifies energy in the form of renewable energy certificates (RECs), green pricing (energy sold by utilities) and competitive electricity (energy sold by electric service providers in a deregulated electricity market).
Altogether, the total Green-e Energy certified transactions, both retail and wholesale in the U.S. and Canada, reached 26 million megawatt hours (MWh), over 66 percent higher than in 2007. That total for sales drops down to 17.4 million MWh once you eliminate cases in which a MWh was sold on both the retail and the wholesale markets, leaving only unique MWh sales.
Retail customers cannot re-sell the renewable energy they purchase, while wholesale customers can re-sell the energy.
The retail sales of Green-e Energy certified renewable energy sales totaled over 13 million MWh, an increase of 45 percent from 2007. The largest contributor to the sales were RECs, which almost doubled to 12.8 million MWh.
The wholesale sales reached 13.1 million MWh, 8.2 million of which were resold in Green-e retail transactions, and 4.8 million of which were sold in non-Green-e transactions.
Wind energy accounted for 68 percent of Green-e Energy certified sales, followed by biomass making up 19 percent of sales, low-impact and small hydroelectric power (8 percent, up from 4 percent in the previous year), LFG/digester (5 percent), solar (.2 percent) and geothermal (.2 percent).
The bulk of energy came from RECs. In 2008, retail RECs grew 43 percent to 10.5 million MWh and commercial RECs jumped 99 percent to 12.9 million MWh. However, the increases were due to commercial purchases of energy, which increased 44 percent while residential purchases fell 39 percent.
Green pricing sales, though, saw a 70 percent increase in residential purchases and a 105 percent increase in commercial purchases, helping bring the green pricing sales total to 2.1 million MWh, an 80 percent increase.
Competitive electricity saw less positive movement, with retail sales going down 14 percent to 340,000 MWh and wholesale sales increasing by only 0.6 percent to 240,000 MWh. While residential purchases went up 16 percent, commercial purchases declined 32 percent.
Combining sales of RECs, green pricing and competitive electricity, more than 20,000 commercial customers and more than 500,000 residential customers purchased Green-e Energy certified renewable energy in 2008, an increase of 97 percent and 94 percent, respectively.
The largest number of customers came from green pricing sales. Commercial customers for Green-e Energy certified green pricing programs went from 7,700 in 2007 to 17,600 in 2008 and residential customers increased from 193,000 to 436,000, both totals increasing by more than 125 percent.
The increase is attributed to more utilities with existing green pricing programs joining Green-e last year and a number of new programs that were certified.
The number of REC customers grew by 5 percent while the number of competitive renewable energy customers fell 3 percent.
Green-e also saw increases in the number of REC marketers and brokers (from 49 in 2007 to 69), green pricing utilities and distributors (from 122 to 202) and the number of states in which Green-e certified green pricing and competitive electricity is available (from 24 to 30). The number of competitive electricity providers, however, stayed steady at 13.
In addition to Green-e Energy, Green-e operates Green-e Climate and Green-e Marketplace. Green-e Climate was started in February 2008 to certify retail voluntary carbon offset products, ending 2008 with eight participants offering 14 products. End-of-year sales exceeded 151,300 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Of that total, 136,000 metric tons was unique.
Green-e Marketplace is a program that allows companies that purchase a qualifying amount of Green-E certified renewable energy to use the Green-e logo. Renewable energy purchases and on-site generation by Green-e Marketplace participants reached a new high of 2.9 million MWh in 2008.