Austinist: Austin Energy's GreenChoice Program - It's Back!

heyzeus

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:35:26 -0600

Re: Solar...wait til Heliovolt and the thin-film photovoltaics hit the market. Perfect chance to incorporate solar into the urban environment. The solar cells can be embedded into building materials, and (allegedly) will cost much less than current silicon-based panels.

mdahmus

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:42:01 -0600

Tarvin, that's why I tied it in my examples to places where shade creates additional public and private benefits. Solar by itself is still too expensive, except in certain peak situations (hottest day on the summer and you have to buy additional electricity on the spot market); but if you're also shading something which costs you a lot of money to cool, or you're providing covered parking to your tenants...

Tarvin

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:19:44 -0600

Solar. Costs too much, does too little.

mdahmus

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:49:07 -0600

This program kind of sets off my greenwashing alarm. They're buying wind power which largely runs at night - and you're paying for whatever they have to pay to do that - even if you use most of your power during the day (like most people do). It'd be one thing if we had electric cars charging overnight, of course. The remainder of their green power is almost all methane burning - which is 'renewable' but not remotely in the same green ballpark. They hardly have any solar at all, of course. If I were czar, I'd tell AE to not buy another watt of wind or methane until they put solar panels on top of that huge ugly chiller they built downtown, the very first day. Would make those particular watts of solar, at least, a lot cheaper, if you accounted for the savings on the chillers not having to work so hard. Or get the city and the relevant building owners to cooperate financially to start putting solar panels on top of the top levels of parking garages downtown.

Elizabeth S.

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:25:47 -0600

And if you move within Austin, you still stay subscribed to the GreenChoice program! I was so happy after my move to get a postcard telling me that I was still in the program (this is while it was closed to new subscribers). Worth emphasis: the fuel charge for regular customers could quickly increase and it may end up being a better deal for you environmentally and fund-wise to be on GreenChoice. The rate you sign up for is a fixed rate, and won't increase (for a while) as fuel rates continue to go up.