Should the Focus Fusion Society use the Viridian Green Energy program as a fundraiser? We were pitched by a Viridian rep, and it sounds like a useful program. It will cost us $300 to sign up, and we need to sign up 15 new users within the first month to break even/get that back (the “fast start bonus”). Thereafter, the fundraising begins. Additional users will each bring $2/meter/mo to the organization, and a usage bonus, and some other random bonuses.
Basic Idea:
By following a link on our site to the appropriate page (yet to be set up), our members sign up to switch their energy supplier from what they have now to Viridian. This program is available in the Eastern US - NJ, NY, CN, IL, MA, PA, MD and more - once we set up the web page you’ll be able to see if your area has it.
Benefits: Our members will save money on energy (Viridian promises lower rates) and we, as a nonprofit organization,will receive a return for each person that signs up with Viridian.
The message this sends: The Focus Fusion Society is committed to clean energy now - we’re not using fusion as an excuse to ignore environmental problems. Green energy today, and tomorrow.
How it works:
Under New Jersey’s [and other states] energy deregulation law, the supply portion of your electric or natural gas bill is separated from the delivery portion. With the supply portion open to competition, customers can shop around for the best price on their energy supplies. Their electric and natural gas distribution utilities will still deliver those supplies through their wires and pipes - and respond to emergencies, should they arise - regardless of where those supplies are purchased. Purchasing your energy supplies from a company other than your electric or gas utility is purely an economic decision; it has no impact on the reliability or safety of your service.
In other words, your local utility allows people to take advantage of “Energy Choice” by switching to 3rd party providers to save money - while the utility still delivers the energy and does the billing.
Viridian is an energy supplier with a 20% and 100% renewable energy option. They have the mission of promoting renewable energy by pricing it low - they want to create demand and drive investment in renewables [this is where I have some questions - renewable energy is more expensive to produce - so just how are they cutting the costs? Is it like Walmart where they are simply taking a loss to drive everyone else out of business, or do other energy suppliers just have that much of a markup that this is not a big deal? I’d like to see some info on this.]
In any case, Viridian promises that the electric supply portion of your bill will be lower. [With the note of warning that if you had set up your bill to be averaged out over the year - this will change if you switch. You’ll be paying the month to month floating rates, so keep that in mind].
They also assure us there is no cost to switch, no credit check required (except for commercial users of over 5000 kWh/month), no cancellation fees, no deposits, no social security number. You just go to the website, and state your preference. Your bill will still come from the utility so nothing will change - except your rates will be allegedly be lower.
So, it’s a risk free change (unless your current energy supplier has some kind of evil contract with you and THEY charge a cancellation fee).
Your physical service remains the same.
You will still receive the same utility bill.
Your utility is still responsible for reliability and emergency repairs.
There is no interruption of service.
If your rates go up, or you don’t like Viridian, you just switch back for free.
That all sounds like a good deal for the customer/Member who signs up. As for our using it as a fundraiser, the appeal is that we are saving our members $, and we’re getting some money, and other than setting up the web page through their site and informing our members of the option, we don’t have to do anything. We just sit back and wait for the switches. Our check comes to us as a donation from Viridian. Not a huge source of income, but it could be a steady thing.
Of course, even that to me is a bit of a hurdle. It’s hard enough asking for direct donations, but it seems like a worse imposition to ask people to make a decision to switch their energy supply. That might require thinking, and a bit of research. It seems legit, and it’s supposed to save y’all money, and make us some…but still, an effort is required. So I’m putting it up here for discussion. If we get over 20 people who think this is a cool and simple thing of value and who say they would switch, then we’ll try it out.
On the other hand, if everyone is like me and overthinks things, then we’ll give it a miss.
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