Competitively priced green power may be a temporary phenomenon - because of the recession, green electricity is in oversupply and is not fetching much of a premium.
Environmental advocates who tout the clean-energy benefits of wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric power are encouraging customers to send the markets a signal by buying green.
"Vote with your dollars and make a difference," said Jay Carlis, vice president of Community Energy Inc., a 10-year-old Radnor renewable-power developer and marketer.
Community Energy devised the Peco Wind option that was one of the few renewable-power choices for customers of the Philadelphia utility before Jan. 1.
At its peak, 35,000 Peco customers chose to pay an additional 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to buy some or all their power from Peco Wind, which invested in Pennsylvania wind projects. Carlis said Peco Wind customers paid for the construction of 40 megawatts of wind turbines.
Nowadays, at least 12 of the 27 suppliers competing for Peco's residential customers offer a renewable-power option, and Peco Wind's 2.5-cent premium seems steep - it adds about 25 percent to Peco's current residential supply cost of 9.99 cents per kilowatt-hour.
About 25,000 Peco customers are still enrolled in Peco Wind, said Cathy Engel Menendez, the utility's spokeswoman.
In Pennsylvania's deregulated markets, customers are free to shop for a power supplier - the commodity charge makes up about two-thirds of the total bill. Regardless of the supplier, traditional utilities such as Peco collect a fee for distributing the power over their wires.
Customers are not obligated to switch. Those who remain with Peco accept a default rate known as "the price to compare," which adjusts quarterly to reflect market changes.
Most alternative suppliers compete on price - some offer flat rates that guard customers from rate shocks; others offer variable rates that change monthly.
