Green-e at SMC: Bitten by the Polar Vortex

Green-e at SMC: Bitten by the Polar Vortex

Green-e symbolSpearheading an effort to convert the 3 existing building’s on St. Margaret’s Church (SMC) campus to renewable energy, the chair of the Environmental Missions Committee had a solid, and very attractive, deal from Clean Currents, a long-time provider of 100% wind power in Maryland. (I’d recommended them for The Fitzgerald, the mid-town Baltimore LEED® Silver certified mixed-use building I consulted on as owner’s rep for LEED—linked here.)

To the shock of Clean Currents’ customers, the company announced at its website on January 31st, the day the deal was to be inked at St. Margaret’s—“Customers: With deep regret, we have to announce that the recent extreme weather, which sent the wholesale electricity market into unchartered territories, has fatally compromised our ability to continue to serve customers. We are extremely saddened to share this news with you.”

The immediate consequence was that all Clean Currents residential and commercial customers would be turned back to their utility providers for non-renewable power—back to primarily coal-fired air pollution.

As reported by The Baltimore Sun, the company had defaulted on payments to grid operator PJM Interconnection, its supplier. (According to PJM’s website, it’s a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia.)

Green-e name & logoWhile fatal in bringing Green-e to SMC presently, there are other providers of renewable energy in Maryland as per the Center for Resource Solutions, a non-profit Green-e certification company based in San Francisco. These providers, including Washington Gas Energy Services’ CleanSteps Wind Power  and Ethical Electric, will be further investigated for possible contracting by SMC for its existing buildings.  And, for the Formation Building in 2015/16.

State REC programs
State REC programs

As to the impact of Clean Currents’ collapse on the LEED certification for the Formation Building, another approach for receiving credit for Green Power is to purchase RECs, or renewable energy credits. RECs are basically a fee that compensates Green-e producers for the production premium over the market rate they sell to the grid. (Obviously not the same as 35% renewable energy being delivered from the grid to SMC.)

Worth 2 points for the LEED credit called Green Power, a small, annual fee for the RECs must be committed to for a minimum level of 35% of estimated power requirement for the new building for at least 2 years. How small, you might ask? Just to give you an idea based on preliminary power consumption estimates for the Formation Building, the quote was $81/yr. for the minimum 35% required by the LEED program.  

P.S.  I’ve written much on Green/wind power. If you missed some, type Wind Power into the blog Search function to find ‘em.

In Sundry Department—

Want to see what a single-stream recycling operation looks like (linked)?

Want to see what a landfill operation looks like (linked)?

For you primary school teachers, look here for an age-appropriate YouTube video about landfills.

Are you favoring the former activity in your household or business?  FYI, further efforts are “in the hopper” for SMC.