Illinois Energy Deregulation Chicago Residential Electric

The State of Illinois has approved Electricity deregulation. The law will take effect in March of 2008. This will give consumers choices in choosing their electricty provider, breaking the hundred year old monopolies of the existing electricity providers in Chicago and the rest of the state of Illinois. Illinois Deregulation

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The deregulation of energy services is the next WAVE since the deregulation of phone services. It is reported that this will be the largest exchange of wealth ever.

All 50 states are now open for consultants right now, even if the consultant’s state is non-deregulated. You are able to earn on others power bills even before your state is deregulated.

Texas, New York City and natural gas in Illinois are now deregulated. There are 10 more states to follow by the end of summer of 2008. Those include Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware. March 2008 Illionois Gas and Electric Deregulation.

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Texans have reported savings as high as 20% on their electric bills while New York has reported savings as high as 10% and everyone is enjoying earning free travel just by paying their power bill every month.

Did you know your municipality will soon be able to save money on your purchase of natural gas? Under a new set of federal regulations, after April 1, 1993 your community will buy natural gas from sources which will be competing for the first time. Unlike telephone industry deregulation, natural gas deregulation will provide cost effective alternatives to explore. For the last half century, the purchase of natural gas was much like the purchase of other utilities: you bought from the only available source whether that was a pipeline or local distribution company (local utility). Natural gas is the next industry to be deregulated with electricity not far behind. If you have not yet, now is the time to consider the cost saving potential of this Illinois Electric deregulation.

Did you ever wonder why Renewable Energy provides less than ten percent of this nation’s electric energy? What the heck is an RPS and why should you take action to support them? And, finally if RPS’s are such a good idea, why do many utility executives hate them?

Defining Renewable Portfolio Standards

Renewable Portfolio Standards are not exactly on everyone’s mind these days. A Google search of RPS is just as likely to turn up sites about Rock – Paper – Scissors. Some insist that RPS is a game, but for states moving ahead with renewable energy industries, Renewable Portfolio Standards, sometimes called Renewable Electricity Standards, can be just the extra push that renewables need to become a big player in the electric energy generation game.

“A renewable portfolio standard is a state policy that requires electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Currently there are 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have RPS policies in place. Together these states account for more than half of the electricity sales in the United States.

Four other states, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have nonbinding goals for adoption of renewable energy instead of an RPS.

Three states, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have set voluntary goals for adopting renewable energy instead of portfolio standards with binding targets.”

Source: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy

Today renewable energy makes up less than 10% of the generation mix anywhere in the nation. And, 8% of that is from conventional large hydroelectric dam facilities. Wind generation even with its recent strong growth amounts to less than 1% of the generation mix and solar comes in at 0.04% of the generation resource in 2005.

Non-renewable resources mostly fossil fuel related, still account for 89.9% of the electricity generated in the USA.

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Utility Executives Hate Renewable Portfolio Standards

So, why do some utility executives appose Renewable Portfolio Standards? It’s simple. No one likes it when someone else tells them what to do, especially when that someone else is outside the industry and expertise of that industry. Utility executives feel that the public is ill-informed about the true costs of electric energy generation. Utility executives with electrical engineering background especially feel that the public has arrived at their “pro-renewable” stance based on incomplete or faulty information. “If you knew what I know….,” you can hear them saying.

Frankly, I think that these executives are right. You don’t have to review too many of my previous blogs to find examples of misguided renewable cheerleaders getting carried away with a few acts or ignoring the facts all together. One mission of this blog is to correct that lack of information. The Union of Concerned Scientists must feel the same way because their FAQ does a pretty nice job of answering those happy hour questions about renewable energy.

Despite gains made in renewable energy production and in spite of the fact that the “fuel” for wind and solar energy is free, the fact still remains that all renewable energy resources cost more to get into the grid than non-renewable energy.

The Bottom Line for Renewable Energy

So, here is the real reason utility executives hate RPS. It raises rates and these guys have never ever gotten one phone call from any of their consumers yelling at them for having rates that were too low. Oh no my friends. I know from personal experience being the main person fielding angry customer complaints that I never, ever in fifteen years of dealing with angry customers – had a customer angry with me because rates were too low; quite the opposite in fact. And, since utility executives are trying to deliver electricity at the best rates possible, no one wants to be forced into RPS regulations mandating higher rates. Or, worse yet mandating rate freezes while requiring RPS targets, similar to what the retail deregulation experience did in many states.

A recent study by American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy of the financial impacts of RPS adoption shows that over all energy costs would go down but the cost savings do not happen right away and this study shows that electricity rates by themselves go up as a result of RPS implementation.

Renewable Energy Management

Renewable Energy tends to be a small scale disbursed generation resource. This requires more coordination for dispatching electricity to the load or demand centers that need the juice. Having a host of renewable energy resource generators to coordinate instead of one huge coal fired power plant gives utility executives nightmares. While there can be positive aspects to a more widely distributed generation resource, there is also the real possibility that making the system more complicated will lead to more system failures, brown-outs and black outs from mistakes made in the dispatch process.

What Can You Do to help Push Renewable Energy Electricity Generation and RPS forward?

So, how do we get around this opposition and get state legislators to adopt renewable portfolio standards?

There are three things that you must do to save the world.

First, know what you are talking about. Get the facts. Find out what alternate energy can really do. Parroting phrases like, “the State of Nevada has enough solar energy to power the entire US economy” is counter-productive. This may be a true statement, but unless you support extensive transmission line construction, no one cares what happens in Nevada.

Second, become a vocal, but polite voice advocating renewable energy development through the adoption of Renewable Energy or Renewable Electricity Portfolio Standards. Write to state and national elected officials and your utility executives and tell them that you support higher rates as long as those increases go toward the addition of renewable energy resources in their generation portfolios.

Finally the absolute most important thing that you can do to help renewable energy become a bigger percentage of the electricity generation mix is stop using electricity stupidly. This is more than just turning the lights off. Residential lighting in the US accounts for only about five percent of the entire electric energy demand. So even if you use headlamps all the time you haven’t done much to reduce energy use. Energy conservation means doing the same work smarter, by buying the most energy efficient appliances; hunting down and eliminating phantom electric loads in your house; making sure your home has the best insulation levels and high quality windows possible. Utility executives are not generating electricity because it’s a lot of fun. They are generating electricity because you are asking for it. Read some previous postings to find out more about energy conservation.

Ambit Energy has become one of the fastest growing retail energy providers in the country by providing independent entrepreneurs across the country the opportunity to earn incredible income in the deregulated energy markets in Texas, New York and now, Illinois. Deregulation is changing the retail energy market. Competition is replacing monopolies. Consumers now have a choice of providers. We want to be the provider of choice for customers who are excited about the opportunity to save money and improve their level of service. We are confident that in putting our customers first we can realize our vision to become the finest and most respected retail energy provider in the United States. Energy deregulation is the biggest event that is going on in USA and now in Europe. Since the energy industry has been deregulated the investment level in new electricity generation has dwindled to almost nothing. Firms do spend money retrofitting existing generating plants and keeping nuclear plants online a greater percentage of the time, but these measures generally only keep our existing capacity running and don’t put new plants on line

As a result of the deregulation of the electricity generation market in Illinois, new means to purchase power have emerged. One of the new products that a customer can buy is green power. Since green power is relatively new, few buyers know much about it or how it can be purchased. Nania Energy (http://www.naniaenergysupplier.com), now provides its clients with the option to procure Green Energy.

What is Green Energy

Put simply, green power is made up of any supply origin utilizing renewable, low-carbon emitting sources. These sources include wind, hydro, solar, and bio-mass. Green power sources produce favorable environmental outcomes because their use generally avoids or reduces the adverse environmental impact of conventional electricity generation. According to the EPA, every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of green power generated avoids the emission of more than one pound of carbon dioxide from traditional fossil-fuel fed power plants.

Green power suppliers then solicit users of electricity to purchase these certificates. These certificates represent the reduced emissions of renewable generation compared with those of conventional generation. These RECs are known as an "off set" because they guarantee that a portion or all of the power being taken off the national grid by a specific user's consumption is being fed at some origin point by renewable green power.

What are the Benefits of Green Power

Once a company has made the decision to purchase green power through Nania Energy, what benefits can they expect other than the "feel good" notion of protecting the environment Many companies have utilized their green power purchase as a means of promotion within and outside of the company. Companies have promoted their green power purchase internally as a means of improving employee morale or to initialize company-wide energy conservation programs. Externally, companies and organizations have used green power purchases as a public relations tool to promote themselves as a responsible entity. Possible methods include press releases or signage around their building. The EPA has even created a site with the top 25 purchasers of green power in the US (www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/top25.htm).

How is Green Energy purchased in Illinois

An end-user may purchase these RECs in one of two ways:

Fixed Energy Quantity Block:

Fixed Energy Quantity Block purchases are usually performed in regulated markets. These purchases involve a set amount of 100 percent renewable energy power. For example, a customer may designate a purchase of 100,000 kWh of green power. The cost of this purchase is determined by how many kWh that are purchased.

Percentage of Use Purchase:

Under this purchase selection, a customer elects to purchase green power as a fixed percentage of their monthly electricity usage. A customer may choose to designate anywhere from 1% to 100% of their load as green power. This selection is priced either per kWh or as a percentage of a company's initial spend (for example, designating 25% of a load as green power may result in a 4% increase in a normal electricity spend). The cost for this green power is calculated monthly based upon a customer's usage.

Other Designations

There are specific designations that a customer can make when purchasing green power in Illinois by selecting the specific source of green power. For example, a company may wish to designate that 100% of their green power purchase be supplied by solar power, or that 100% of their green power come from Illinois sources. These specific designations add a significant cost to any green power purchase.

It is important to note that green power may be purchased regardless of whether you are still taking service from a standard utility company or if you are taking advantage of savings with a retail electricity supplier like Chicago based Nania Energy. You are not buying the specific power generated by green power but only the certificate.

Green power is increasingly utilized both as a means to reduce environmental pollution and as a geostrategic method of decreasing reliance on Mideast oil. This article has hopefully explained exactly what green power is in the electricity market, the methods of purchasing it, and the possible benefits of its use for Illinois companies.