I’d been skeptical about paying extra for “clean” or “green” energy options from ConEd before. We got another mailer this weekend, and this time I put a few minutes into research and I’m glad I did. Their “Green” option will let you sign-up for a month-by-month variable rate. This at first sounds a little scary, who knows how high it could go. But being month-by-month, I can revert at any time. Also, they cap the extra cost for this variable plan at 1 cent per kilowatt-hour. Looking over past bills, this equates to an extra $1.83 cents on our $66 bill last month, and an extra $7 or so on our highest summertime bill… a small price to pay for coal/oil free electricity. ps. the Green option delivers energy from 35% wind and 65% hydro sources. They also have a wind-only plan at an extra cost of 2.5 cents per kWh.

If you have your ConEd account number nearby, you can enroll online. I just did, and it took about 5 minutes. During the process they even show you how many kWhs you’ve used the past few months, so you can figure what the extra cost will be. Be sure to pick the variable rate option– the fixed rate was about 40% more and requires a 1 year commitment.