Renewable Energy Credits
An easy, attainable way to offset the carbon footprint of your energy usage.
Offset your carbon footprint
San Isabel Electric’s Renewable Energy Credit program allows member-owners to offset their carbon footprint. Purchasing renewable energy credits ensure that the equivalent amount of renewable energy is added to the grid, contributing to a cleaner and more sustainable energy mix.
Offset your carbon footprint
San Isabel Electric’s Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) program allows member-owners to pay a premium to offset the energy they use that is not generated from renewable sources.
What are renewable energy credits?
Renewable energy credits are tradable, non-tangible commodities. Utilities that sell electricity can buy RECs from power generators as proof that they buy electricity from renewable sources. One REC is created for each unit of electricity generated by a renewable source. So, 1 REC is proof that 1 unit of electricity came from a renewable source and was fed into the electric grid. Colorado requires electric generation companies, including electric cooperatives, to sell a certain amount of renewable energy. RECs help utilities meet those requirements.
How can I buy renewable energy credits?
San Isabel Electric Member-owners who sign up for the RECs program pay a premium on their electricity bill to cover the cost of RECs purchased from our power supplier. The premium is a percentage of your total bill.
San Isabel Electric is an electric distribution cooperative, meaning we don’t generate electricity, we buy power from an electric generation cooperative, Tri-State Generation & Transmission, and sell it to local member-owners in our community like you. San Isabel Electric buys 97% of your power from Tri-State G&T and local member-owners who generate excess solar energy. San Isabel Electric also buys all the energy from Huerfano River Wind, an 8 MW wind farm just north of Walsenburg. In total, 35% of the electricity San Isabel Electric sells comes from renewable sources, like wind, solar, and hydroelectric energy. The remaining 65% comes from non-renewable, carbon-based sources, like coal, and natural gas.
When you sign up for our RECs program we take your energy usage, or kilowatt-hours (KWh) used, and multiply that by 65%, the percentage of non-renewable energy we purchase from Tri-State G&T. Then we multiply that number by the cost of the REC, $0.001. For example, let’s use $150 for the total due for the month. The average residential household with an electric bill of $150 uses 1,056 KWh.
1056 x 0.65 = 686.4 x $0.001 = $ 0.69. It will cost an additional $ 0.69 to offset your carbon-footprint with RECs for the month in this scenario.
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How do renewable energy credits work?
San Isabel Electric uses the funds collected from the premium you pay to purchase enough RECs to cover your non-renewable electricity usage during the billing period. This means that the electricity that you’re using may not be physically sourced from 100% renewable energy generators, but the RECs ensure that an equivalent amount of renewable energy is produced and added to the grid.
Overall, our REC program allows member-owners to support renewable energy production by paying a premium for their non-renewable electricity usage. While the electricity delivered to their homes may not be physically sourced from renewable energy sources, the purchase of RECs ensures that the equivalent amount of renewable energy is added to the grid, contributing to a cleaner and more sustainable energy mix.