STOUGHTON, Wis. — Stoughton has been named a national leader in renewable energy. Residents used renewable energy at the eighth-highest rate in the country, with 5% of homes participating.
“Someday we hope to be first,” said Jill Weiss, the director of Stoughton Utilities.
Why isn’t every community doing this? They could, but it’s up to the utility company, and in Stoughton, the city runs the utilities.
“It comes down to how you’re purchasing power and what programs are available, so through Stoughton Utilities we have a program where customers can choose to participate in it,” Weiss said.
Stoughton’s Choose Renewable program has been a hit since 2009. In fact, this is their eighth time ranking in the top 10 nationally.
“Your regular electric bill, to actually make sure that all of your power is provided by green energy, there’s an added cost, if you wanted to participate at 100% you’d call Stoughton Utilities, we’ll tell you exactly what you use each month, and you can actually participate to make sure that you’ve got 100% if that was what we desired to do,” Weiss added.
While customers aren’t saving money, saving the planet isn’t breaking the bank either. Customers who join the program purchase “green-powered energy blocks” for $2 apiece.
“Basically if you’re a typical residential customer, say you wanted to be 100% green in your usage, you’d pay an extra, basically you’d end up buying two to three energy blocks, so that would be another $4-6 a month,” Weiss explained.
While Stoughton earns national recognition, Weiss wondered how single-digit participation in the program was enough to put them on the big stage.
“It’s almost sad that you can be eighth and only have 5% of your customers participating, so there’s a lot of opportunity for growth,” she said.
Still, communities have to start somewhere, she said, recognizing progress doesn’t happen overnight.
“There’s a lot of things that have to occur. We’re shutting down coal plants but we also know the opportunity of needing to build enough renewable resources out there, whether its solar, wind, biogas, we need to continue to move that forward, and as we get more and more public support and the public to say yes this is what we want to do, the faster all of that will occur,” she said.
Stoughton customers, too, can choose to be partially renewable, or skip the middle man altogether and join 122 Stoughton buildings that rely on solar panels they installed themselves.
Other utilities offer similar programs for their customers; MG&E’s Green Power Tomorrow program draws from wind farms across Wisconsin and Iowa and solar panels across the area. Alliant Energy also offers customers the ability to have some or all of their energy come from green sources through its Second Nature program. We Energies has a similar program it calls Energy for Tomorrow.
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