By Daily Press staff
Santa Monica will save more than $500,000 in electricity costs if the City Council tonight approves a contract to buy 100 percent renewable energy.
City staff has recommended that the council approve a three-year contract with Electric America, which would procure renewable energy for the city by purchasing what are called “green tags.”
The tags are an economic tool that represents the added benefits and costs associated with renewable generation like the environmental attributes of a single megawatt hour.
Attributes include the benefits of offsetting emissions or avoiding pollutants such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide where the value of a pound of pollution is determined by market.
Electric America will purchase about 27,745 megawatt hours of green tags from renewable electricity generators located mostly in California.
Electric America will provide the city with renewable electricity at 8 percent below Southern California Edison’s current tariff for the next years, which equates to an 8 cent per kilowatt hour rate
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 24, 2003. Read the original PDF.