To some extent the entire electrical grid is a bit of a shell game. There's no way to guarantee the origin of your electrons as the entire thing across the country is tied together. Power generators (coal/nuke/wind/solar/wave/hamster) tap into the grid lines not very differently than your house does, but they're pushing into the grid instead of pulling. If you install solar panels on your roof and tie into the grid, you can actually push into it as well (depending on the setup) just as if you were a miniature 3-mile island. So even if you're paying for coal power, some of your electrons might be coming from your neighbor with the solar panels on the roof.
What you're doing by paying a bit extra for wind is mostly supporting their choice by subsidizing the increased distribution and implementation costs (wind is actually still slightly more costly than coal, mostly due to the cost of implementing new technologies versus old established ones (explained a bit here)), and also giving them customer counts to wave for the legislature for future additions to the grid.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-07-02 10:30 pm (UTC)http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1103877
To some extent the entire electrical grid is a bit of a shell game. There's no way to guarantee the origin of your electrons as the entire thing across the country is tied together. Power generators (coal/nuke/wind/solar/wave/hamster) tap into the grid lines not very differently than your house does, but they're pushing into the grid instead of pulling. If you install solar panels on your roof and tie into the grid, you can actually push into it as well (depending on the setup) just as if you were a miniature 3-mile island. So even if you're paying for coal power, some of your electrons might be coming from your neighbor with the solar panels on the roof.
What you're doing by paying a bit extra for wind is mostly supporting their choice by subsidizing the increased distribution and implementation costs (wind is actually still slightly more costly than coal, mostly due to the cost of implementing new technologies versus old established ones (explained a bit here)), and also giving them customer counts to wave for the legislature for future additions to the grid.