World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

October 29, 2006 – Vol.11 No.32

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Live in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, or Washington State and feeling guilty about your carbon imprint? Stop by a Whole Foods store and buy a Wind Power Card.

Activated at purchase, the cards represent wind energy credits where the proceeds of their purchase are used to build new wind capacity. Each certified card is equivalent to a household’s average monthly electricity consumption; 250 kilowatt hours for an individual ($5 per card) or 750 kilowatt hours for a family's electricity consumption. ($15 per card).

The cards double as refrigerator magnets. Collect twelve and your house is off the hook for its electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions for a year. Visit Whole Foods at http://www.wholefoods.com/

Arizona was one of the first states in the US to have a renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Approved by lawmakers in the 1990s, renewables were to supply a small 1.1 percent of the state’s power generating capacity.

Now the state’s Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has finalized rules that will lead to 15 percent renewable power generation from the state’s utilities by 2025. The new, updated RPS also says that 30-percent of the new renewable power must come from distributed generation, meaning utility companies may eventually financially assist small, home or business renewable energy projects in the same way they do in California. There’s also a 50-percent buy-down for small wind turbines included in the new RPS ruling. It’s good news for small wind in Arizona.