Sep 19 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Patrick Cassidy Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.

Green energy is hot but electric customers appear cool on paying for it.

With the high cost of electricity and a shaky economy, convincing customers to voluntarily pay more than they have to is a challenge, according to energy company officials who attended an industry conference in Boston yesterday.

The challenge is unlikely to get easier with energy costs expected to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, Cape Light Compact administrator Maggie Downey said outside the forum at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel. "We are in a new business environment, and the prices that we're dealing with are always going to be higher," she said.

The conference is sponsored by Independent System Operator New England, which oversees the power grid and electricity market for the region. The forum continues today.

The inclusion of renewable projects in the mix of energy sources is inevitable, said conference panelist Seth Kaplan, the Conservation Law Foundation's clean energy and climate change program director. "The question is not whether we should do it or if we should pay for it, it's how should we pay for it," Kaplan said of transmission improvements that would allow for more renewable energy projects in New England.

The Cape Light Compact, which buys power for roughly 170,000 electric customers on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, offers a green energy product that costs an additional 1.6 cents per kilowatt hour, which is about an extra $8 on a bill for an average home that uses 500 kilowatts of electricity per month.

But getting customers to join the program and stay onboard has not been easy. Of the 3,800 customers who signed up for the Compact's program when it was first offered three years ago, more than half have dropped it.

NStar, which delivers electricity on the Cape but only sells it to customers who opt out of the Compact's service, has reported that roughly 3,300 customers signed up for the company's green power program during its first three months, according to Jed Nosal, chief of the Office of Ratepayer Advocacy in Attorney General Martha Coakley's office.

NStar's green power costs 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour on top of its basic rate and takes its energy from two wind farms in New York and Maine.

The Compact program, which provides renewable energy from a mix of sources and renewable energy certificates, was initially offered using an incentive that matched the premium with money set aside for future renewable energy projects on the Cape and Vineyard.

Customers can also file for a federal tax deduction based on their participation in the program, said Joseph Soares, the Compact's power supply planner.

Compact officials are considering how to increase the number of customers who get energy from renewable sources, including the possibility of a lower premium.

Customers may be more likely to sign up for a green energy program if they can see where the electricity is coming from, Soares said. The newly formed Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative could be one way to accomplish that goal, he said. The group, which was formed to give towns the opportunity to own and operate their own renewable energy projects, could enter into a contract with the Compact to sell its power.

The Compact has also entered into talks with Cape Wind Associates, the company that wants to build a wind farm on Nantucket Sound.

Although the two organizations have signed a confidentiality agreement to ease the exchange of data, the discussions have not progressed much further, Downey said.

"There have been no pricing negotiations," she said.

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