by: Diane Benjamin
Bloomington took two votes, but now both Bloomington and Normal convinced the citizens they could save money under aggregation. Both cities negotiated prices with Homefield Energy, who is really Ameren. (http://blnnews.com/2012/12/18/aggregation-follow-the-money/)
Both Bloomington and Normal opted for 100% Green Energy. Electricity isn’t a different color because a wind turbine produced it, so in reality, there is no way to determine what electricity is generated by coal and what is generated by wind. There is a big difference in price though. By opting for 100% Green Energy, both Bloomington and Normal decided for you to fund renewable energy. I’m sure that is fine for some people, but for others struggling to pay high electric bills, it’s troublesome. A lower rate could have been secured.
To achieve 100% Green Energy, part of your money is going to buy Renewable Energy Credits – a piece of paper. The money generated goes to promote the use of renewable energy.
The Citizens Utility Board has a website explaining RECs: http://www.citizensutilityboard.org/ciElectric_RECs.html#
I have many other stories on aggregation, just type aggregation into the Search bar.
FYI: http://www.cleanpowermarkets.com/green_certificates.php
Our country does have the capacity to become more energy independent but not with these left-wing Progressive evironmental ideas. We have a vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas in America that we could use but thanks to policies of this Obama governmemnt that constantly attacks our existing coal-fired utilities and coal producers despite the fact that it accounts for fifty percent of all electricity that we generate they refuse to lead us in that direction. As for oil, literally billions of barrels remain untapped and unused because successive Presidential administrations have limited or banned access to it! Support for these ignorant “green energy” and “green jobs” by this failure of a President and his administration is just one more way to further bring America down and bankrupt our nation!