Our Home is Bullfrog Powered

Maybe we need some new stickers.

One of the major environmental changes we’ve made was to sign up for Bullfrog Power’s service. This went a long way towards greening our home with one simple signup form and a few extra dollars a month. Basically, following our next meter read, Bullfrog started injecting 100% green and renewable electricity into the grid for every fraction of a kilowatt hour we used.

Our fridge and stove became much greener overnight, as did our lights, our fans, the TV and even our lawn mower. Everything that runs on electricity is now consuming (indirectly) 100% green electricity that leaves a much smaller carbon footprint.

At it’s core this is an investment in Ontario’s infrastructure. For every kWh we use and every dollar we spend Bullfrog invests a little more in building new wind turbines and low-impact hydroelectric generators. Ultimately this serves to drive up demand for green power and drive down the overall cost of such equipment to make it more competitive.

We pay a premium for our electrons, and we get nothing more than a “warm fuzzy” in return today. However we believe that the investment is one that will pay off for generations to come and since the cost is so small, it’s an easy thing to do.

This doesn’t give us a free pass to waste electrons willy-nilly, rather quite the opposite. Since the cost per kWh is higher it’s an incentive to use less (or at least as little as possible). We don’t fret over every watt of phantom power but we do turn out lights when not in use and unplug things that aren’t going to be used again later in the same day.

Since signing up more than two years ago, we’ve reduced our footprint by over 10 tonnes of CO2 as well as a few dozen kilograms of NO and SO2 (other bad gasses from traditional electricity).

The cost to us? About $50/tonne or $35/mo (on average).

But the picture isn’t all rosy in the minds of others. There are some often cited concerns out there regarding Bullfrog Power.

Most prominent is that since the actual electrons entering our home come from the grid and not from Bullfrog directly, we’re not really consuming green power. From our vantage point as long as someone is receiving the same amount as we use that’s fine. We all breathe the same air after all.

The second concern is that at at $50/tonne these are very expensive carbon offsets. For instance some offsets can be had as cheaply as $15/tonne. We could easily purchase certificates for Gold Standard offsets instead and save some cash. However, we think that strategy is less of a direct investment in electricity generation, which is one of the major polluters. We’ll offset our vehicle emissions and other things instead.

In the end it really comes down to this: If it’s good enough for the David Suzuki foundation, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, then who are we to argue? There is simply too much information out there (some from very biased parties) for one family to make a completely researched and informed decision. At some point we just have to follow the example of others we trust.

If our change has inspired you to become bullfrog powered with 100% green electricity too, you can sign up your home online at www.bullfrogpower.com. It only takes about 10 minutes, and you don’t need any special equipment or wiring to make the switch. Plus, you can enter our personal promotional code (TANY0074) to get $25 off your first Bullfrog Power bill.

Happy Breathing.