What about renewable energy?

Make no mistake about it, Madison Lights Out thinks renewable energy is awesome. If you haven’t done so already, we encourage you to sign up for MG&E’s Green Power program and take the Mpower pledge while you’re at it.

That being said, getting your electricity from renewable sources should not be viewed as a replacement for being mindful of one’s overall energy consumption. Renewable energy is, rather, a wonderful complement to such an endeavor.

If this seems counterintuitive, consider the way that renewable resources are used to generate electricity. Can one “dial-down” a wind turbine? Can one “crank-up” a solar panel? No. Short of hoping for wind or sun, utility companies really have no way to manipulate the amount of electricity these devices generate once they are brought on-line.

Given the relatively inflexible nature of renewable energy, then, it stands to reason that utility companies are going to deliver and sell every last watt-hour they manage to generate from renewable sources, regardless of the number of customers actually signed up for renewable energy programs. Doing anything else just wouldn’t make any business sense once a utility has invested in actually building wind farms or solar generating stations.

Perhaps crunching some numbers would help to demonstrate this....

Let’s say that on a given (windy) day electric demand in the Madison area is 400 megawatts (MW) and 21.5% of the electricity being used (86 MW) is coming from wind. The other 78.5% (314 MW) is coming from coal or natural gas. If energy consumers in Madison take steps to reduce the city’s overall demand by 5%, down to 380 MW, we would still be getting the same 86 MW from wind. This would allow MG&E to dial-down their coal and natural gas generation to meet the remaining demand of 294 MW. (Incidentally, keeping up a 20 MW average demand reduction over a whole year would prevent about 192,000 tons of CO2 from being emitted.)

When you sign up for MG&E’s Green Power, you’re doing a great thing by creating demonstrable demand for wind power, which will ultimately result in more wind generation capacity being built. At the same time, it’s important to understand that you’re doing an even better thing by making a conscious effort to reduce the overall amount of energy you use, regardless of where it’s coming from