How to Sign up for Green Energy in DC if your Utility Company is Pepco: Resident Edition

Steps:

1. Know your options. DC has several companies that offer 100% wind and/or solar plans. They are:

• CleanChoice Energy
• Groundswell
• Inspire Energy
• WGL Energy

2. Look at the available plans for each company by clicking on the links above to view each company’s plans or by using the cheat sheet (last updated July 4, 2023) for wind and/or solar plans below:

Renewable energy plans for DC, from lowest kWh pricing to highest kWh pricing

3. Identify your current kWh (kilowatt-hour) unit price by going to page three of your Pepco bill. Under “Supply Charges,” there is a sentence, “Based on billed use, your average annual price to compare is X cents per kWh.” Compare this number with the kWh unit price in each green energy plan.

If you want to compare annual and monthly costs, the steps are below — just a little simple math.

• Identify your annual kWh usage. On page three of your Pepco bill, under “Energy Usage History,” you’ll see each month’s kWh usage.
• Add up your kWh usage per month to get your annual kWh usage.
• Identify your average annual price. On page three of your bill, under “Supply Charges,” look for the sentence, “Based on billed use, your average annual price to compare is [value] cents per kWh.
• Multiply your annual kWh usage by your annual average price to get your current annual cost.
• To get the annual cost for each green energy plan in the table above, multiply your annual kWh usage by the kWh unit price in each green energy plan .
• If there is a cost increase, this is a kind nudge to make the switch — you’d be making an investment to end climate change, mountaintop removal mining, fracking, the threats to Standing Rock, etc. We can contribute significantly to ending these issues simply by switching to wind and solar in our homes.

4. Choose a plan and sign up as instructed on the company’s website.

FYI/Answers to FAQs:

• Pepco will still be your utility. You will continue to get only one utility bill from Pepco.
• There will not be an interruption to your service, because wind and solar are in larger supply than demand. There are many wind farms and solar farms with which companies contract, so there is always wind or solar available for companies to purchase and supply to your home.
• Your electricity currently comes from DC’s default fuel mix (coal 17.7%, nuclear 35.7%, natural gas 39.4%, and renewables 6.9% according to the PEPCO’s 2020 Environmental Fuel Source Information). Switching to wind or solar energy simply means you instruct your utility to purchase 100% of your energy from wind and/or solar.
• Switching to wind or solar energy is an investment in wind or solar technology. Eventually wind and solar will be the least expensive energy options for everyone everywhere. Purchasing wind or solar now makes that shift happen faster.
• Widespread use of wind or solar energy (1) significantly mitigates climate change and (2) makes mountaintop removal to mine coal in Appalachia, fracking, and oil pipelines that threaten livelihoods literally become things of the past, and (3) mitigates wars fought for oil — and thus all the horrors that come with war. The lessening of suffering that independent, renewable energy leads to is quite simply phenomenal.
• Renters can make the switch as well as homeowners. Whoever pays the electricity bill each month can make the switch.