Green energy worth added cost, say homeowners

Rob and Joanne Toth hope renewable energy plan generates environmental benefits
Tim Murphy, New Hamburg

TIM MURPHY, INDEPENDENT STAFF
Rob, Joanne and Hanna Toth are the newest customers of Bullfrog Power. The green energy provider is offering customers the ability to draw from environmentally-friendly energy sources without upgrading hardware in their homes.




(Jun 14, 2006)
A new energy provider has extended it's services to Wilmot Township.
So far one local family has signed up to receive 100 per cent green energy from Bullfrog Power.
The energy provider uses power generated solely from wind and hydro sources, and passes the environmental benefits on to power users.
The process works as follows: residents sign up either online or over the phone with Bullfrog Power. Your power account is then transferred to Bullfrog, and you pay them in the future. There are no hardware installations or changes in your home, and the change over is unnoticeable.
Tom Heintzman, president of Bullfrog Power, said the change only takes about 10 minutes, and all one needs is a copy of their current hydro bill.
"From then on, it's seamless," he said.
Rob and Joanne Toth made the switch just last week.
"We were a little leery," said Rob, when they first read about Bullfrog Power.
Giving regular donations to the World Wildlife Fund, they read about Bullfrog in a recent article in the WWF newsletter.
Seeking out negative press about the power provider, they found none, and decided it would be a good idea to switch.
"Once we realized what it was, we realized it was a no-brainer," said Rob, who operates a consulting firm from his home.
Acknowledging the switch costs about $20 or $30 dollars more each month, they felt it was worth the environmental benefits. "If everybody does a little, it can help the region a lot," said Joanne.
"Nobody is mining uranium on our behalf, nobody is burning coal on our behalf," said Rob.
According to Heintzman, your home will still draw power from the same Ontario hydro grid it drew from before, only now Bullfrog Power will input more green energy into the grid to make up for what your household uses.
The power supply will be just as reliable as ever, because your home still draws from the public grid.
This displaces pollution and CO2 emissions from coal and other power plants.
Currently, Bullfrog operates a few wind turbines in Ontario, and is building two new turbines on the Bruce Peninsula, just north of Wiarton. There is already one turbine currently functioning at this location, and the two new ones will be slightly smaller.
Heintzman said there is also another turbine being operated near Port Albert.
Installed and functional, a turbine costs about $3 million to build. Bullfrog's power mix comprises of approximately 80 per cent low-impact hydro and 20 per cent wind power
The concept of Bullfrog Power isn't unique. There are a number of green retailers in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.
It is unique to Ontario however.
"There is enough environmental and energy reason to make it a good time for green retailers to open their doors," he said.
There is a slight increase in cost for a customer to make the switch.
Local utilities charge 5.8 cents per kilowatt hour for the first 600 Kwh/month of consumption, and 6.7 cents per Kwh afterwards. Bullfrog Power charges 9.1 cents.
The cost of creating green energy is greater than that of oil, gas, nuclear or coal energy.
Heintzman said it works out to be about a dollar a day, or, the price of a bottle of water.
He also noted business' can make the switch and can then boast environmentally friendly practices to their customers. He said the Cambridge Wal-Mart recently made the switch.