{"id":18053,"date":"2012-09-17T12:20:29","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T17:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=18053"},"modified":"2012-09-17T12:20:36","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T17:20:36","slug":"texans-get-another-choice-on-where-their-power-comes-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/09\/17\/texans-get-another-choice-on-where-their-power-comes-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Texans Get Another Choice On Where Their Power Comes From"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_18115\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/09\/17\/texans-get-another-choice-on-where-their-power-comes-from\/village-relies-only-on-alternative-energy-sources-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18115\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18115\" title=\"Village Relies Only On Alternative Energy Sources\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/09\/1170499421-300x187.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/09\/1170499421-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/09\/1170499421.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Sean Gallup\/Getty Images<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Texans can now choose to get their power from only wind or natural gas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Texans can now choose to get their power from 100 percent Texas-drilled natural gas. \u00a0Through a new option from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.directenergy.com\/EN\/Texas\/Pages\/Texas-Energy.aspx\">Direct Energy<\/a>, a retail electric provider, customers\u00a0can pay a little more &#8212; about six dollars extra a month on the average homeowner&#8217;s bill<strong>*<\/strong> &#8212; to get their power just from Texas gas.\u00a0In Texas, Direct Energy serves\u00a0cities like Houston, Dallas, Midland, and Brazoria County.\u00a0Their Texas branch started the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.directenergy.com\/trueblue\/default.aspx\">True Blue<\/a>&#8221; plan for Texans only.\u00a0The company says the idea for the energy plan came in the interest of attracting a certain demographic of consumers in the Lone Star State.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe True Blue product was meant to tap into the tremendous amount of pride in Texas,\u201d says Direct Energy general manager Rob Comstock. \u201cWe felt that this was a great way to offer a product to customers that want to support that part of the economy, the natural gas business, and have a tremendous amount of pride in the state and what we do here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But if being &#8220;true blue&#8221; isn&#8217;t your thing, the company has also announced another new plan called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newleafgreenenergy.com\/\">New Leaf<\/a>,\u201d which takes a more renewable approach. Those opting into \u201cNew Leaf\u201d will purchase their energy completely from wind.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;New Leaf&#8221; option is just one of hundreds of other plans already available to Texans wishing to get their power from only renewable sources.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/08\/28\/paying-for-energy-efficiency-programs-texas-industry-opts-out\/\">Paying for Energy Efficiency Programs: Texas Industry Opts\u00a0Out<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/19\/a-view-from-the-tipping-point-the-switch-for-energys-future\/\">A View From the Tipping Point: The \u2018Switch\u2019 for Energy\u2019s Future<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/08\/01\/walmart-becomes-nations-solar-panel-king-but-not-in-texas-yet\/\">Walmart Becomes A Solar King, Just Not in Texas. Yet.<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Powerline-2-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/austin-energy\/\">All About Austin Energy<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/08\/windmill-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/texas-wind-power\/\">A Guide to Wind Power in\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>According to the Texas government website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.powertochoose.org\/_content\/_compare\/showoffers.aspx\">www.powertochoose.org<\/a>,\u00a0Texas energy companies offer plenty of 100 percent renewable energy plans in each Texas region. But these options tend to be a little more expensive than nonrenewable options.<\/p>\n<p>For Central Texans with public utilities, there is the popular <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinenergy.com\/energy%20efficiency\/Programs\/Green%20Choice\/index.htm\">GreenChoice<\/a> option with Austin Energy, which costs $25 extra with 100 percent renewable resources. San Antonio residents can opt into the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpsenergy.com\/Services\/Windtricity\/\">Windtricity<\/a> program, which allows customers to source up to 100 percent of their power from renewables. That will cost the average consumer $12 extra on their monthly bill.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, anybody purchasing from these energy programs will not be fueling their homes directly with wind energy or natural gas. In the case of Direct Energy, the company uses the premiums customers pay to purchase natural gas and wind energy from outside sources, which becomes a percentage of energy generated on the grid.<\/p>\n<p>Comstock says that with the New Leaf plan, \u201cYou are guaranteeing that the amount you consume, an equal amount, at minimum, is being produced through renewable sources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>*Prices calculated throughout this post were done using an average use of 1200 kWh a month based on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eia.gov\/tools\/faqs\/faq.cfm?id=97&amp;t=3\">2011 statistics<\/a>\u00a0electric consumption in Texas.<\/p>\n<h5><em>Elizabeth Trovall is an intern with StateImpact Texas.\u00a0<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texans can now choose to get their power from 100 percent Texas-drilled natural gas. \u00a0Through a new option from Direct Energy, a retail electric provider, customers\u00a0can pay a little more &#8212; about six dollars extra a month on the average homeowner&#8217;s bill* &#8212; to get their power just from Texas gas.\u00a0In Texas, Direct Energy serves\u00a0cities [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":18115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[22,145,32,24],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19130,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053\/revisions\/19130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}