Green Pricing

Buy Renewable Energy from Your Utility

How it Works


Green pricing is an option offered by electric utilities that allows customers to support investments in renewable energy technologies like wind and solar. Through green pricing, participating customers pay a premium on their electric bill to cover the extra cost of the renewable energy.


What is involved in joining a green pricing program?

Buying renewable energy from your utility through their green pricing program is simple. While you won't save any money like you might when subscribing to a community solar garden, you can typically sign up in just a couple steps.

  1. Check out our list of programs or ask your utility if they offer one.
  2. Decide how much renewable energy you want to buy.
  3. Fill out your utility's enrollment form.
  4. Check out your bill to see the program listed there.

Frequently Asked Questions

The cost of green pricing programs depends on the utility, but the typical home in Minnesota should expect to pay an additional $8-12 per month to fully cover their use.

For example, on average, factoring in the fuel cost credit, the price for WindSource in 2016 was about $0.01/kWh, which would cost the average Minnesota home that uses 800 kwh/month $8.

Yes. When you participate in a green pricing program you are buying power that is additional to any goals or mandates for renewable energy that your utility needs to meet. This means that you get to keep the renewable energy credit, or REC, and can say that you are powered by renewable energy.

To offer an example, Xcel Energy’s WindSource program supplies subscribers with the “green” wind energy that is generated along with the REC. This means that WindSource customers don’t pay fossil fuel charges for the bundled RECs because that energy comes from a different pool of resources than the standard “house blend” of energy. From Xcel’s 2017 WindSource Product Content Label, the house blend is coal (29%), nuclear (30%), natural gas (16%), wind (15%), hydro (7%), biomass (3%), and solar (<1%).


Guide to Purchasing Green Power