Update on the local co-op's Green Energy Issue

Last December, I posted a challenge to our local electric co-op: put green energy on a track to have price parity with the dirty stuff (stoner: Green Energy: What's it Worth To Ya?).

Now, courtesy of Bill Whaley and the Horse Fly (semi-monthly independent paper), we have some new information. It seems that the exclusive, monopolistic supplier to all the local electricity boards (ours, the cooperative Kit Carson Electric, included), named Tri-State, has so far imposed a policy that no more than 5% of the electricity they supply to any customer (read: electric company) will be green.

This puts Kit Carson's pricing mis-alignment (using fully-loaded economics) into perspective. There's no real need to drive green power to Carson's customers, as they can't deliver it if the demand were too high. Setting the price above the "normal" power ensures there won't be much of that problem.

Still, though, I maintain the challenge. If Kit Carson announced their intention to bring the prices to parity, and to supply the extra Green Power themselves, we'd have, as they say in Jamaica, "a situation".

Tri-Power could challenge Kit Carson (who has an exclusive contract with Tri-Power as supplier) and look very, very bad. So bad they would be subject to political defenestration, which would free things up a mite. They could ease up on their 5% limitation, and agree to provide Kit Carson with all the Green Power their customers demanded, which would be accomplished by putting (yet another) price increase on the dirty stuff (without the corresponding increase on the Green). Or they could call Kit Carson's bluff, let them come up with all the Green Power they could add to their network. Which would be the best possible outcome for all down here.

So, I stand corrected, but maintain my challenge to the local rural electric co-op: announce, by January 1, 2009, that you intend to bring the prices of Green and Grey Power in line. Spit out those chips onto the gaming table.