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Are they paying extra for the green energy? Or how does it work? I meant it as a serious question (I can see it gets downvoted - for some reason?).

• Cthulhu_ 12y ago
  A while ago, as a consumer, you could get 'green energy' for a small extra fee. This was compensated again with government grants, so that 'green' energy was the same price as 'gray' energy; the government-funded surplus was then used (in theory) by the power company to build wind farms and whatnot.
  • _delirium 12y ago
    This is still the case in some markets, e.g. in Texas's partially deregulated electric market. Consumers can sign up with any of 20 or so electric providers, some of whom provide "100% green electricity", usually for a price a bit higher than the cheapest providers.
• smackfu 12y ago
  Usually, the energy company is already producing both energy by both renewable and non-renewable means. You can pay them to say that your energy is only coming out of the renewable side. This does not really affect anything in the actual energy production, it is just bookkeeping. It's still fed into the same power grid. The only real way it affects the energy production is if the demand for renewable gets high enough that it exceeds the actual renewable production.
  • chvid 12y ago
    Exactly. I wondered if something special happened when a big company like Apple bought 100% wind energy. They could be paying above market price as you could do at some point if you were a simple private consumer. But more likely they are paying less.
  • toomuchtodo 12y ago
    > The only real way it affects the energy production is if the demand for renewable gets high enough that it exceeds the actual renewable production. And the only way this happens is: 1) Government regulation mandating a certain percent of energy is generated from renewables or 2) Enough consumers demand (through purchase agreements like this) renewable energy. Apple is most definitely helping renewables in this way, and writing it off as "bookkeeping" is disingenuous.