How to Sign up for Green Energy in PG County and Montgomery County, MD if your Utility Company is PEPCO

Steps:

1. Know your options. PEPCO offers several companies that are green power providers:

• CleanChoice Energy
• Green Mountain Energy
• Groundswell
• Inspire Energy
• NRG Residential
• 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:

Wind and solar plans for PG County and Montgomery County, 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, “Your Price to Compare is [number] 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 one of your Pepco bill, under “Your Monthly Electricity Use in kWh,” you’ll see each month’s kWh usage. Add up your kWh usage per month to get your annual kWh usage.
• Multiply your annual kWh usage by the per kWh price identified earlier (under “Supply Charges”). This gives your annual current cost.
• Multiply your annual kWh usage by the kWh unit price in each green energy plan to get the annual Transmission Services cost for each green energy plan.
• Compare the annual cost of your current plan and the annual cost of the green energy plans. You can divide the annual the annual cost by 12 to get the estimated cost/month for each 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, 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.
• 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 PEPCO’s default fuel mix, which is probably mostly coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels. Switching to wind or solar energy simply means you instruct your utility to purchase your energy needs from wind 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. 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.