Related Stories

If you're reading this, you live in one of the few places in California that has decided to bring clean energy to its residents by managing its own power. Since 2010, Marin Clean Energy has provided Marin residents and businesses the option to have a cleaner mix of energy than they were otherwise getting.

By contracting with alternative energy suppliers for both renewable and non-renewable power, MCE provides a cleaner mix by default, and also offers a voluntary option called Deep Green that gives subscribers 100 percent renewable electricity from several wind facilities in the West.

While the idea is simple, how it works is complicated.

Electricity is fed onto the common grid, and clean energy is accounted for through contracts and renewable energy certificates that confer the "renewableness" of that energy. It needs to work this way because individual electrons can't be routed from the wind turbine to a particular house that just signed up for green power.

Once electricity gets on the grid there is no such thing as "green" electrons or brown ones — they are all the same system power.

That is why we rely on contracts and certificates to sort out who bought what electricity and from where. Tracking individual electrons is impossible, and so to show where renewable energy is used, we follow the paperwork and the payments made by people and organizations that choose green power.

Admittedly, this contract-based system isn't as easy to understand as a parade of luminous green dots streaming out of your power outlet would be, but the system works because all the electricity is accounted for and issued to those who buy it.

And renewable energy certificates are not just essential, but required — both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency require certificate ownership in order to use green power, even if it is from a solar system right on your roof. Renewable energy certificates are essential for delivering green power.

MCE's program has been criticized by those who don't understand this system of energy trading in the U.S., and that renewable energy certificates are the only way to ensure you're getting renewable energy. When MCE buys certificates from wind farms in the West to provide clean power to its subscribers, it's participating in a system used by states across the country, by a growing host of companies like Kohl's, Intel, REI, and Whole Foods; and federal agencies like the EPA and the U.S. Army.

MCE's Deep Green program meets the highest standard in North America for clean energy programs — Green-e, a nonprofit certification program in San Francisco that also certifies nearly three-quarters of the retail, voluntary market for renewable energy in the U.S. Green-e ensures that subscribers are getting what they paid for — wind power from new facilities that is sold only to subscribers of programs just like this one.

We review MCE's marketing materials and website to make sure subscribers are getting clear, accurate information, and we audit the company's records annually to make sure subscribers have sole title to the renewable energy they've purchased.

One of the great advantages of community power is that it can effect real change — like developing local generation (such as the solar project at the San Rafael Airport) — creating aggressive energy efficiency and net metering programs, and providing more renewable energy to residents and businesses.

In many ways, community power is local power. Marin led the way, and other cities and counties across the state are beginning to follow your lead.

Jeff Swenerton is communications director for Center for Resource Solutions, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that is working to combat climate change by promoting renewable energy.