Somerville's Community Choice Electricity (CCE), explained

[mem_winterhill]

I just got this email from GECA. I bought my car through their electric vehicles program. But I liked this and wanted to post it because I thought their explanation of the Class 1 green energy was helpful. People who I spoke with had concerns about that, but I didn't explain it as well as they do here. It supports the production of local green energy by funding projects around this area. 

Somerville's program details: https://cce.somervillema.gov/

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Hi Mary, Have you been solicited by "green" electricity suppliers like CleanChoice Energy? Maybe you want to support renewable energy, but are skeptical if your money will actually go toward shifting our electricity away from fossil fuels. You're right to be skeptical!  Don't take the bait. Your community already has a great community electricity aggregation program, ensuring that everyone in town is helping to add more renewable energy to our electric grid with each and every bill (affordably). But the competing offers from other suppliers are not so green. Here's a quick summary of why your community's program is better. When you buy green electricity, you want this to happen. But guess what? It doesn't always. You can buy renewable energy to line someone's pockets, or you can buy renewable energy to help build more of it. How do you tell the difference? In MA & RI, laws require that utilities and suppliers buy an increasing amount of local "Class 1" or "new" renewable energy on our behalf. This creates an incentive to build renewable generators in New England, and by voluntarily choosing to add more Class 1, your whole community is driving up demand. Most "green" electricity suppliers only offer what's required by law, and the rest comes from projects that don't need your money. If it's not Class 1,  you're doing nothing to help shut down fossil fuel plants in our region, or anywhere else. Lucky for you, your community's aggregation is focused on Class 1. If your interest is piqued, go more in depth on our blog: https://blog.greenenergyconsumers.org/blog/there-are-three-ways-to-buy-green-electricity-two-are-good-and-one-is-bad