Green-pricing programs impose a very stiff premium on consumers who want to be responsible, and in the aggregate, generate a relatively small amount of new renewable energy projects. In some cases, consumers are buying power from existing renewable energy facilities. Supporters of green pricing say that this is a short-term effect until the current capacity is soaked up. Others argue it will take a long time before that point is reached. The program of MPS, a municipal utility, has been so successful that the utility plans on building a second wind turbine in order to satisfy requests from its customer-owners to enroll in the renewable energy program.
Green pricing requires a few customers to pay a substantial premium for relatively little power.
If a significant majority of the customers of a given utility vote for green energy, the utility can purchase a larger amount of renewables and spread the costs over its entire customer base. Often 10 times the amount of green electricity can be purchased at a fraction of the cost for an individual household. To date only one utility of which we are aware, the customer-owned Salem Electric Cooperative in Oregon, has adopted this strategy. But where there is utility inaction, or where the electricity landscape is dominated by IOUs, there are policies that states can enact that embrace green citizenship and remove the onus of supporting renewables from the individual ratepayer to the collective base of ratepayers.