So, it’s pretty miserable out there this week, eh? Well, we don’t think it’s because of the heat. We don’t even think it’s the humidity.

It’s the guilt.

Here we sit, in our air conditioned homes and offices, contributing to a record demand for electricity in the Washington area. And we’re not just protected from the heat, but contributing to it. The condensers creating all that cool air sit outside our windows, churning out waste heat. Worse yet, in our region, the generation of the electricity to power our air conditioning (and our lights, and our computers…) comes largely from the mining of coal. Despite some advances in “clean” coal technology, it remains a process that contributes greatly to global warming. It’s a lot to take, just knowing that our comfort today may be doing a great deal of harm in the near future, if not already.

Pepco, the energy distributor for D.C. and Maryland, annually negotiates a particular standard fuel mix for its customers, from a number of different energy generators; this year more than half comes from coal, and another third from nuclear. Clean, renewable sources generate only 2.3% of D.C. residents’ power. Even the most car-less, energy-conscious person leaves a carbon footprint larger than they’d like.

Thanks to energy deregulation, consumers have a lot more choice these days in where their energy comes from. The company helping D.C. customers negotiate the world of power choice is Pepco Energy Services (PES), a wholly owned and seperately managed subsidiary of Pepco Holdings, Inc (which was formed when Pepco and New Jersey’s Connectiv merged). Through PES, you can contract a different fuel mix for your individual house or apartment. While sitting in the comfort of a cool house, you may rest assured that 10% of your power is coming from captured methane escaping from landfills. Or, for a slightly higher rate, a full 100% of your energy could be contracted with a wind power generator.

There are some drawbacks. Since the energy is all distributed through the same grid, you are not actually recieving the power directly from the clean sources, even though your money is directly allocated to the green power provider. Also, as you might expect, the rates for these power sources are higher than the standard rates. Depending on the contract, the rate is 35% to 45% higher per kilowatt-hour, which can range anywhere from $10 to $50 a month, depending on the size of the house and efficiency of your systems. But for those who are more concerned with the cost of continuing our fossil fuel dependence, it could be well worth the premium.

Any readers out there have green power contracts? We’d love to hear about your experiences, and how much of an impact the cost difference makes.