Easy-to-Use App Empowers Vermont Businesses to Name Their Price and Buy Local Renewable Energy
COLCHESTER, Vt. – Green Mountain Power (GMP) is empowering Vermont businesses with an app that lets them name their price for renewable power, generated by Vermonters. Now, companies who join this new pilot program can power their business with 100 percent renewable energy by buying it using GMP’s Vermont Green app. This enables businesses to take quick action to go renewable, avoiding construction costs, long-term power contracts, loans or complicated spreadsheets. You just need to know how much power you’d like and how much you’d like to pay, and the online marketplace will process your bid and match you with local renewable power for however long you’d like.
Vermont Cookie Love in Ferrisburgh is looking at signing up for Vermont Green, hoping to make the energy supply behind its popular cookie dough, cookies, and creemees 100 percent renewable.
“We’re a Vermont company focused on local ingredients and doing good for the environment. We’ve already taken steps to be renewable with solar, and it is an exciting idea to be able to power part of my business with Vermont Green. I’m looking forward to learning more about how this program could simplify making our cookies with 100 percent renewable energy,” said Paul Seyler, founder and owner of Vermont Cookie Love.
The power GMP provides to customers is already 60 percent renewable and 90 percent carbon free, and GMP is committed to being 100 percent carbon free by 2025 and 100 percent renewable by 2030. This new pilot program will let businesses purchase renewable power to close the renewable gap, so their product or service can be completely renewable, now.
“This is a whole new way to think about local, renewable energy. Vermonters generating it on their rooftops can now sell it to businesses right in their own communities,” said Josh Castonguay, who leads the GMP Innovation Team. “If you’re a company who wants your product to be made with renewable power, you can do that. While you’re brewing that special beer, or building that line of furniture, you can buy the amount of power you need with the app.”
The Vermont Green trading platform is hosted by GMP and transactions are tracked using blockchain technology, making the buying and selling process transparent and the verification of Vermont Green energy attributes simple. GMP worked with software company L03 to develop the cloud-based marketplace to connect local energy sellers and buyers.
This pilot program was just filed with state regulators, and participants will be able to enroll starting Monday, Dec. 2. It is limited to 50 businesses to start. Learn more about Vermont Green.
About Green Mountain Power
Green Mountain Power (GMP) serves approximately 265,000 residential and business customers in Vermont and is partnering with them to improve lives and transform communities. GMP is focused on a new way of doing business to meet the needs of customers with integrated energy services that help people use less energy and save money, while continuing to generate clean, cost-effective and reliable power in Vermont. GMP earned a spot on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in the World list three years in a row (2017, 2018, 2019). GMP is the first utility in the world to get a B Corp certification, meeting rigorous social, environmental, accountability and transparency standards and committing to use business as a force for good. J.D. Power’s 2018 and 2019 rankings put GMP among top utilities for customer satisfaction. In 2019, GMP was named “One of the Best Places To Work in Vermont” by Vermont Business Magazine and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, and was the winner of the Deane C. Davis Outstanding Vermont Business of the Year Award.
Kristin Kelly, Green Mountain Power
(802) 318-0872
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