Want the Power Company to pay you to use electricity?

Photo courtesy Floyduk, Flickr

It isn’t a common occurrence, but if you live in certain part of the U.S. it does happen.  During the night in west Texas and Illinois, power plants that produce energy from the wind sometimes generate more electricity than their customers can use.  The result?  Well, if the power plants shut those turbines down they would lose the 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour tax credit for generating electricity, so shutting down isn’t an option.  Instead the customers are paid to use the electricity, which works as long as the customers are paid less than the power companies receive as a subsidy.  Essentially the power companies receive taxpayer money for generating energy from renewable sources which they then pass a portion of back to the taxpayers.

Operating at a negative isn’t feasible for extended periods of time.  After all, think of how much energy the average American household would use if they were being paid to use it!  Wind power companies are investigating different ways to harness and store wind energy as  compressed air that can be released during times of peak demand, or when the wind isn’t blowing.  Click here to read more about the storage process and the companies involved.