EmPowering Climate-Friendly Energy

Many Vermont residents now have an easy option for offsetting GHG emissions from their homes. Starting in January, households that buy power from Green Mountain Power can elect, for only $6 per month, to support renewable energy and fight climate change.

It’s part of Green Mountain Power’s CoolHome^sm Program, being offered in partnership with Clean Air–Cool Planet (CA-CP) and NativeEnergy. Those who elect to make the $6 monthly donation keep six tons of CO2 out of the air if they stay with the program for one year.

“Enrolling in this program allows Vermonters to have the same global warming impact as powering and heating their homes with renewable energy, neutralizing the CO2 emissions resulting from their use of electricity and fossil fuels,” explained Tom Stoddard of NativeEnergy.

That’s because CA-CP will use their donations to support renewable energy projects that reduce the amount of CO2 and other fossil-fuel-fired power-plant emissions. The funds will help finance the construction of Vermont-based methane projects and the first utility-scale, Native American-owned wind turbine.

The methane gas from this facility will be “recycled”
to create energy, rather than being released
into the atmosphere.

Among the projects CoolHome^sm will support is a municipal methane electricity generator being built in Essex Junction, VT, which will capture the methane gas created by the Essex Junction Wastewater Treatment Facility, to power two 30-kW electricity-generating turbines. The project will reduce the facility’s consumption of electricity from the grid and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by approximately 3,450 tons over its first 15 years of operations, according to NativeEnergy estimates. The project, which also received funding from Efficiency Vermont, is replicable, with similar financial support, at treatment facilities throughout Vermont. It is also hoped that CA-CP will be able to support farm methane projects in Vermont.

An example of wind
farming in action,
in Vermont.

CA-CP’s CoolHome^sm donations will also help build the wind turbine being built by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe on their reservation in South Dakota, with additional help from NativeEnergy’s national WindBuilders^sm program. The turbine will displace electricity made mostly by burning coal upwind of Vermont – which also contributes to local acid rain.

“This is the kind of partnership we are fostering across the Northeast Region to offer corporations, campuses, communities and citizens solutions to climate change,” said CA-CP Executive Director Adam Markham. “It requires action and commitment, but it represents a chance for individuals and institutions to make a real difference in global climate change.”

To sign up for the program, Green Mountain Power customers can send back a form included in their electric bill when they mail their payment. They can also call Green Mountain Power customer service center at 1-888-835-4672, or enroll online at www.greenmountainpower.biz/coolhome.

If you are not a Green Mountain Power customer or Vermont resident, never fear: you can still offset your polluting power consumption, by participating in NativeEnergy’s WindBuilders^sm program: sign up on the CA-CP website at www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/action/windbuilders.php.

--Bill Burtis