Clean Currents Neighborhood Wind™ Now Sourced from Pennsylvania Wind Farm
For the past two years, Clean Currents has offered customers the choice between being powered by National Wind RECs or Neighborhood Wind™. The main difference between the two product offers is the location of the energy generating wind farms.
Both our National Wind RECs and Neighborhood Wind™ products are Green-e Energy certified; the highest standard of renewable energy certification and verification. Whereas our National Wind RECs product is sourced from domestic wind farms located in the continental United States (specifically Elkhorn Ridge Wind Farm in Bloomfield, Nebraska, Adair County Wind Farm in Adair, Iowa, Benton County Wind Farm in Fowler, Indiana, Turkey Track Wind Farm in Blackwell, Texas, and the Heartland Consumers Power District in Wessington Springs, South Dakota), our Neighborhood Wind™ product was sourced from a regional wind farm called the Big Sky Wind Farm in Bureau & Lee Counties, Illinois. But we are happy to annonuce that our Neighborhood Wind™ product is now sourced from the Highland North Wind Farm in Cambria County, Pennsylvania (pictured below).
(© EverPower Wind Holdings, Inc.)
The Highland North Wind Farm, which is the source of our Neighborhood Wind™ product, is located within our regional electric grid otherwise known as the PJM electric grid. This means that the electricity that is produced by the wind turbines at Highland North is fed directly onto the same grid that our homes, businesses, shops, and schools pull power from. By choosing Clean Currents Neighborhood Wind™, you are helping to increase the share of renewable energy right here in our region.
The United States is split into ten regional Electric Power Markets. We live within the PJM electric grid, which covers all or most of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia as well as small portions of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and North Carolina. This grid serves over 50 million people and is the largest grid in North America. A grid is an interconnected network for delivering electricity from suppliers to consumers. There are three main components to a grid: 1) Electricity generation (power generating sources like coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants, hydro dams, wind farms, and solar fields), 2) Electric power transmission (high-tension transmission lines that move electricity over long distances, and 3) Electricity distribution (your local utility’s network of power lines). Washington, DC, Maryland, and Pennsylvania have deregulated electricity markets which means you can choose your electric supplier–competitive electric suppliers like Clean Currents cover the generation section of electric delivery to your home or business.
So while our National Wind RECs product is sourced from wind farms that produce home-grown wind power, they are not sited within our regional power grid – which means that the electrons produced by these wind turbines are not placed onto our regional PJM grid. With our National Wind RECs product you are getting the Renewable energy credits (RECs), which are created when 1,000 kilowatt hours (kWhs) of wind power from these farms is generated, and the associated environmental benefits. Wind developers across the country rely on REC sales to operate and expand their wind power production as RECs help offset the high upfront costs of building wind turbines. So when you choose our National Wind RECs product, you are helping build more wind power facilities which in turn displace non-renewable sources of electricity.
There are no large wind farms located within the immediate Washington, DC, Baltimore, or Philadelphia metro areas, but the Highland North Wind Farm, located in Summerhill Pennsylvania, is one of the nearest utility-scale wind farms to us. By choosing our Neighborhood Wind™ product you are directly supporting its continued existence and future expansion.
The choice is yours between Neighborhood Wind™ or National Wind RECs, but the results are the same – greater demand for clean, renewable wind power across the United States.