Cincinnati, Ohio would be officially 100 percent powered by renewable energy without significant cost increase for actual consumers.
The Queen City is moving toward a renewable energy portofolio through a power aggregation deal with regional power providers. Local communities inOhioare allowed by law to pool their citizens together to increase buying power and solicit lower prices for natural gas and electricity.
Cincinnati decided to take its aggregation move a step further and require power providers to include quotes for both the cheapest and cleanest electricity available. The city council has urged the administration too choose suppliers that offer only renewable energy.
If everything will be all right, officials could make Cincinnatithe largest city in US with 100 percent renewable energy supply, now 85 percent comes from coal. People sustained the initiative at a recent public hearing when Greenpeace flew a “Cleaner is Cheaper” blimp over the city to emphasis the externalities associated with coal power, annually estimated at 200 deaths, 313 heart attacks and 3,200 asthma attacks in their community.
Larry Falking, the director of the city’s office of environment quality said that: “This is probably the biggest opportunity we’ll have over the next several years to reduce Cincinnati’s carbon footprint.”
If the responses requested by city officials do not come back to include 100 percent renewable energy without significant cost increases, they may be able to structure the deal so that individual consumers can choose between the cheapest electricity option and a completely renewable electricity option.
