Austin Energy and Portland General Electric sold the most renewable energy under voluntary green power programs of any utilities last year, according to an analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Texas-based Austin Energy used wind and landfill gas to sell 754 million kWh of voluntary renewables in 2010. Portland General Electric was close behind, and third-ranked PacfiCorp followed at a distance, with 587 million kWh.
Western states dominated in several of the rankings published by NREL yesterday. The analysis ranked Portland General Electric first for number of customer participants, with 77,907, followed by PacifiCorp, Xcel Energy (including Northern States Power, Public Service Company of Colorado and Southwestern Public Service) and Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
But as a percentage of total retail electric sales, Waterloo Utilities in Wisconsin sold the most voluntary renewable energy, at 22.6 percent. It was followed by Oklahoma’s Edmond Electric at 9.9 percent, Portland General Electric at 8.1 percent, the City of Palo Alto Utilities at 7.4 percent, and another Wisconsin provider, River Falls Municipal Utilities, at 7.2 percent.
Some of the usual suspects also led in the NREL rankings by customer participation rate: the City of Palo Alto came tops on this measure with 21.5 percent, and Portland General Electric came next with 12.6 percent. After that came Iowa’s Farmers Electric Cooperative of Kalona, Madison Gas and Electric, Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the City of Naperville, Ill.
The research revealed Indianapolis Power & Light Company as the utility with by far the lowest price premium charged for new, residential customer-driven renewable power, at only 0.14 cents per kWh. It was followed by Edmond Electric at 0.27 cents per kWh.
The full rankings are available here.
