The May Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) bill arrived today. Just in time for me to answer a couple of questions that R. left in Comments the other day at the post regarding CFL Bulbs. This bill is of interest because it reflects our first GreenPower Premium charge.

Susan and I have been in this Eugene area home since March 2005. We haven't utilized EWEB’s residential energy management programs, yet, and we average KWH use per month is 933.34. We were just about average last month; we used 964 KWH and were charged an extra $9.64 to support GreenPower. We used 1114 KWH the month before. Our bill is only $3.00 lower this month because of the premium charge and an increase in the cost of water. I haven't figured out why our KWH use one year ago was only 587. I am going to attribute our increase this year to keeping Susan warmer. Since we have now turned off the heat, next month's bill will provide a new measurement to help confirm or deny this hypothesis.

Using less energy is good. Switching to CFL Bulbs that use less electricity is one way to accomplish that goal. We bought 10 CFL Bulbs of varying watts this month to reduce our carbon footprint. This step was easy and it only cost us $31.00. Though the bulbs take time to warm up to produce their maximum light, I am willing to accept this as the price I pay for conservation. I have looked at other ways to save energy and money since this step was completed.

According to Consumer Reports, 45% of our energy bill is allocated to heating and cooling our house. We don’t have an air conditioner or other appliance that cools the house, so no money is going to cooling. The radiant floor heating for our 1000 square foot house certainly bumps our energy bill. Our goal is to keep the house no higher than 70 degrees and no lower than 65 degrees. This is mostly a late fall, through the winter and early spring heating principle. We accept lower inside temperatures and survive higher temperatures during the warmer months here in Eugene, Oregon.

I need to confirm the level of insulation for the house. The attic has fluffy, lose insulation that looks to be at least a foot deep. I am unsure about the walls however. I will have to do more research to find out about the insulation in there. Our house sits on a concrete slab, so we are set in that location. The other research I need to do is to find out if we can install a programmable thermostat for our heater. We constantly and manually change our thermostat based on the reading of a digital, wall-mounted temperature gauge. A programmable thermostat would allow us to reduce the heat at night and while we are away from the house. It had better be able to get the house up to temperature by the time we get up or come home.

Hot water is reported to take up 11% of the energy bill. The hot water heater is a mystery to me. Do we wrap it or not? The pipes are insulated, but it sits naked in the corner. References to wrapping the hot water heater state that you should consult the owner’s manual to determine whether wrapping is good or an act that will void the warranty. I will check to see that we have the temperature turned down to 120 degrees. That temperature appears to be a standard.

There are two options regarding the hot water heater that I would like to pursue if I had more money to spend on this project. One idea that I am toying with is to install an on-demand, instantaneous water heater. In my international travel I have used this type of shower heaters and have been satisfied, though I would have to get used to wires and switches being so close to the water. The other idea is the solar water heater. I keep reading about the subsidies and tax breaks available for solar water heating installation. I need to research this to find out if it is financially feasible.

Washers and dryers account for 10% of the bill. We air-dry our clothes as much as possible to reduce energy use and cost. Our washer and dryer have a scratch-n-sniff sticker of approval from the EPA. We spent more money to get the front loader washer that uses less water and energy. We use only warm water on light colored clothes and cold water on the rest to reduce energy.

With lighting making up 7% of the energy bill, our recent switch to CFL bulbs was a good step. However, we would have a greater impact on our bill and energy consumption by making changes to the heating and water heater appliances.

We need a smaller refrigerator. 6% of our bill goes to this appliance. We have what appears to be 1000 square foot refrigerator. We use 13 sq. ft of that space for the food we make each week. Anybody want to swap a newer model refrigerator that is about 5 feet high for our newer model 13-foot tall fridge?

Consumer Reports lists Household Electronics (4%), Dishwashers (2%) and Miscellaneous (15%) as making up the rest of the energy bill for a household. Our computer, modem and speaker system is our big household electronics energy sucker. We should look carefully at all of the little “things” that are plugged in and decide if there is a more efficient way to handle our usage in this area.

After my recent post about subscribing to Greenpower, my partner Susan received a thoughtful response from Mat Northway this week regarding the questions we had about how the $0.01 premium on each kWh of electricity we use would be managed. Mat is the Energy Management Services Department Manager with the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) and he provided a few more details than EWEB’s Greenpower FAQ.

Regarding the question of how the extra funds would be managed, Mat reports that the EWEB board has established a reserve account for the Greenpower program. Mat states, “This reserve account keeps Greenpower revenues separate from the remainder of the utility revenues and under the direction of the Board.” This is a sound decision in my opinion and will certainly allow EWEB to better measure the popularity and costs of the program.

Susan also asked about the cost of the administration and marketing costs. The initial marketing expense was at least $40,000. This amount is based on the 80,000 flyers that were mailed to EWEB customers. This was the flyer that caught my eye. Mat indicated that he felt that keeping administration and marketing cost to 10% - 15% of revenue would be “responsible and appropriate.” He says that EWEB doesn’t have advertising or promotional costs for “regular” power. This could be problematic, without a comparison with other departments at EWEB how will the public know if they are being responsible with their spending?

Mat noted that after one month the Greenpower program sign ups and sales earned $2,000. At this rate the program will have revenue of $24,000 after 12 months and will have started with expenses of at least $40,000. Those figures do not take into account the administration and marketing costs that Mat indicates EWEB will incur. I do not believe that this assumes that the Greenpower program is going to fail due to these very basic financial figures. Mat appears realistic about the revenue possibilities and encouraged by what a strong response by the community could bring to them:

What we actually spend the money on will depend greatly on how much we actually collect. The types of investments we are considering range from additional investments in more renewable energy such as additional windmills installed at an existing wind farm, to funds for research in to new forms of renewable energy such as the work currently being conducted by OSU on wave energy off the Oregon coast, to support of local education to improve understanding of sustainability and the impacts of energy generation on our environment. If we only collect a few thousand dollars by years end we might only be able to proved some financial support for a local sustainability conference and workshops; at $50,000 to $100,000 we could also add investments in research into new technologies and additional investment in photovoltaic generation in Eugene, with over $100,000 we could also consider expanding further the ongoing investments that EWEB already makes in new windpower in Oregon.

Susan and I appreciated Mat’s quick, thoughtful and full response to our questions. He invited us to review the program’s progress in order to have EWEB prove their ability to build and expand this new program. Though he suggested that we hold off until they had proven themselves, I feel that we need to provide early support for this program in order for a critical mass of participants to be established.

It almost felt like an American consumer holiday recently. All the media around me was awash in stories regarding the reasons we should buy green products. Earth Day is the new Christmas. Remember, however, environmentally sound decisions are first based on REDUCTION, then REUSE and then only finally RECYLE. A green window cleaner still is being put into a plastic bottle. A touch of vinegar in a small bucket of water will work just as well and is not harmful to the environment. You can buy white vinegar for pennies on the dollar, a pretty good size savings from the eco-friendly window cleaner. I hope you enjoyed Earth Day and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

As the title of the post states, our local power company offered to provide our electricity to us through a greenpower program. By choosing GREENPOWER the pamphlet said, “you can assign 100% of your electric load to a new renewable resource projects. To cover all of your energy use with Greenpower, you will simply pay a 1-cent per kilowatt-hour premium above the normal rate.” This appears to be straightforward and simple.

I pulled out the last 12-months of electric bills and calculated our use and potential additional cost.

Total kWh used in 24 months : 23,346
Total cost of a $0.01 premium for Greenpower : $233.46
Average kWh per month : 933.34
Average estimated monthly increase in our electric bill to pay the premium : $9.34

We agreed that paying $9.34 a month to support our local electric company's continued investment in renewable power generation projects was worth the cost. Susan did shoot an email off to our electric company inquiring about their policy to guarantee that our premium would go directly to new renewable energy technologies. This program is an expansion of the their windpower program, so we feel comfortable that the Eugene Water and Electric Board will utilize our funds appropriately.

In my last post, Socially Conscious Mutual Funds with Charles Schwab, I used the tag “Green Leaf” and “Mutual Funds”. Our tags are intended to help you find articles that relate to your individual interests within Green Capitalism. The “Mutual Funds” tag is simple to define. It is intended to be used when investing in mutual funds is discussed in a post.

The “Green Leaf” tag is more complicated. Rob and I discussed a rating formula as a way to direct our content and assist our audience. This discussion occurred over cupcakes and coffee at Cupcake Royale to give you an idea of the mood that surrounded the development of tagging. Susan approved of the rating system during our discourse, but I believe that she was under the impression that we were asking if she liked the cupcakes. She said something like, “Yes!”, “Good”, and “More”. With that kind of stamp of approval, Rob and I dropped the idea into our site.

The rating system is available to us to tag articles. However, we don’t know if a company or mutual fund is clearly “green”. We do however have principles and ideals that lead us to make judgments about the environmental and social components of a mutual fund or companies. This desire to better define how Rob and I make these judgments is part of the reason we started this site. Our goal is to also use our audience’s comments and suggestions as a tool to fine tune what is “green”.

At this time, “Green Leaf” refers to mutual funds and companies that are the most socially conscious in our opinion. The next levels of this Green Ranking descend based on how far the companies or mutual funds stray from our ideals and principles. The ranking is Green, Yellow, Red or Black. As we get more information, gain experience and fine tune this system, some judgments about investments will change. For example, I considered all the funds from my article about SC funds with Charles Schwab to be “Green Leaf”. Discussion and research may allow us to make finer distinctions between mutual funds that are currently labeled as being socially conscious.

We also have a Green Ranking scheme for lifestyle decisions. This system is similar to the Leaf ranking for investments outlined above. Green, Yellow, Red, or Black Bulbs reflect our opinion of how socially and environmentally conscious decisions related to transportation, food, entertainment or work may be. Riding a bicycle to work would be given a “Green Bulb” tag due to the strength of that lifestyle decision. The leaf was a natural symbol for us to use, but the reasoning behind the bulb needs a quick description. We arrived at the bulb based on the benefits of the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). We hope you find these tags helpful, but we encourage you to challenge our judgments about green investing and lifestyle decisions. Our audience's comments will assist us developing useful guide for us and for you.