AMP offers green pricing program
- Published: May 3, 2012
At Village Council’s April 16 meeting, Eric Lloyd of AMP, the Village’s municipal power cooperative, presented information on a new green pricing program, Ecosmart Choice, that AMP is offering to its members.
“Nationwide, there’s a small but growing percentage of customers who want green power,” Lloyd said of AMP’s effort to meet that growing need.
If the Village chooses to participate, it can do so at no cost, according to Lloyd. Membership in the program is growing slowly, he said, and currently in Ohio, Bowling Green, Cuyohoga Falls and Minster are members.
The topic was presentation only, and no vote was taken. Council members said they needed more information on potential costs involved in billing customers before joining the program.
The program promotes green energy by allowing participants to offset a portion of their electricity purchases with renewable energy certificates, or RECs. For each kilowatt of electricity used that is covered by the Ecosmart program, an equal amount of traditional fossil-fired generation is offset, according to AMP’s promotional materials on the program. For example, an average customer participating in the program can offset 8,500 pounds of CO2 emissions each year: “the equivalent of not driving your car 10,000 miles.”
The program costs the consumer 0.5 cents per kWh, so that an average residential utility user using 750 kWh each month would pay an additional $3.75 monthly, if the customer signed up at the 100 percent level. Participants may choose to offset 25 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent or 100 percent of their usage.
More information is available on the program’s Web site, http://www.ecosmartchoice.org .
AMP will use primarily hydro, wind and landfill gas power to match customer enrollments with the amount of RECs needed to support the program, Lloyd said.
Council members, who have made a priority of using renewables to supply Village electricity needs, expressed interest in the program. A benefit of programs like EcoSmart, according to Lori Askeland, is that “you are giving a message to the industry that you need to supply more renewables.”
In other April 16 business:
•Council unanimously approved the second reading of a new law that bans texting while driving in the village. The law makes texting while driving a primary offense, meaning that police may stop a driver if they see that person texting, with no other offense being committed.
• Council approved unanimously a first reading of a supplemental appropriation.
• Council announced that Spring Clean-up Week will be May 14–18.
• Council unanimously approved a resolution that continues the Village’s relationship with the Greene County Building Department.
• Council continued planning for its May retreat.
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