May 5, 2008
Bullfrog Extends Reach To Condos And Apartments
Photo by Marc Lostracco.
In upcoming months, Toronto's summer temperatures will once again strain the power grid, and the demand for more power means more power generation—and consequently, more pollution. For Ontario customers wishing to utilize renewable energy sources, there are currently only two options: expensively retrofit your property to generate some of its own electricity, or sign up with Bullfrog Power. For many condo owners and apartment dwellers, neither of those options have been viable.
Bullfrog is currently Ontario's only "green" energy retailer, providing electricity sourced locally from renewable and emissions-free techniques, like low-impact water generation (80%), and wind turbines (20%). They don't actually deliver this clean power directly to your home, but inject it into the existing grid proportionate to each customer's use. Customers continue to draw from the grid as usual, and Bullfrog's billing system piggybacks on the existing utility provider.
This has been the problem for many potential high-rise customers—either utilities are included in rent, or existing bulk metering contracts weren't compatible with Bullfrog, and residents don't often have a choice in electricity retailers. As of the end of April, Bullfrog has finally been offering service to all Ontarians via a credit system, where those who can't be directly metered by Bullfrog can estimate their usage, and be invoiced accordingly in addition to their existing electrical bill. Consumers can also adjust this amount online for each billing period to more accurately reflect their actual usage.
Switching to green power isn't cheap, however, and price is undoubtedly the most significant barrier to adoption. For those signing up on this system (which can be done immediately and online), Bullfrog provides estimates based on square footage (screenshot, right). The EcoLogo-certified electricity is priced at a 3.5¢ premium per kilowatt hour (kWh), which means that a switch to Bullfrog will add about 20%–30% to your bill. For comparison, a one-bedroom apartment using about 375 kWh monthly will add about $13 to the traditional cost, but a detached home (using 1,500 kWh/month) would get dinged about $50 more.
Much of the premium comes from the higher costs of green power generation, as well as the investment in new renewable power technologies. Bullfrog is actually a reseller—it buys and invests in renewable energy from multiple sources—and while the higher cost is undoubtedly a turn-off to some, the company has managed to persuade 600 businesses and 6,000 homeowners in Ontario to make the switch. Bullfrog is a for-profit company, obviously, but eco-conscious consumers seem to be responding positively, based on principle alone.
Still, 6,000 residential customers in a province of 4.5 million households is only a drop in the bucket, and less than 3% of power flowing into the power grid is from clean, renewable sources. 39% of the power we use now comes from nuclear plants, and 37% is derived from coal, oil, and gas generation. Most of the energy in Bullfrog's mix is from low-impact hydro, which are usually smallish dam facilities operating with minimal environmental impact. Other sources of renewable energy, like solar and biofuel, are currently too expensive to offer without large government subsidies.
Some of the most significant impact comes from the potential corporate market, which can also help drive the need to commission new wind turbines in the Bruce Peninsula, for example. Wal-Mart, RBC, BMO, Cadbury, and Lululemon are some of the companies that are offsetting some of their electricity-related emissions with Bullfrog, and the Toronto-based company boasts high-profile residential customers like Margaret Atwood, Jamie Kennedy, Bob Rae, Gord Downie, and Mark Cullen.
With condo and apartment residents finally covered, and 60% of Canadians saying they'd prefer to use electricity from renewable sources, accessing green power for the home doesn't seem as difficult anymore. Without the subsidies and infrastructure enjoyed by nuclear, coal, and high-volume hydro plants, renewable energy remains significantly more costly, but it's tough to argue against an extra fifteen bucks when many of us spend more than $50 each month on our morning coffee.
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The cost difference would be much less if we had time of day pricing, especially during the summer.
Time-of-use electrical metering is on its way in Ontario. Not soon enough, though!
I'd like to see an option where people would buy blocks of electrical credits, and the thermostat in their home would count down how much you have left. It would be a good way of educating people on how they use electricity (especially if it can graph daily/weekly usage for the customer), and it would probably cause people to start using less—or doing laundry and running dishwashers at different times of day and unplugging their "wall wart" phone chargers when not in use. It would almost be like a self-imposed rationing system.
And before someone stuck in a bygone era starts flipping out about how Torontoist is full of leftist hippie communists, I said it could be an option, not an imperative.
What's kind of annoying is that even though I get an individual bill for my condo, the amount is proportionally averaged between all the units in my complex. So, if I'm being energy conscious, I'm paying for the loads of people who aren't.
Bullfrog makes me feel less guilty about the energy i use.
and we do a pretty good job at our house - lights are always off, computers are shut down, heat is turned down during the day and at night, etc. our biggest flaw? we have Bell ExpresVu (well, 2 flaw there, i guess), and the receiver gobbles energy. we also use our dryer, but not an insane amount.
i am not a huge fan of off-hour energy use. i work 12 hr days and sometimes get 1-2 days off a week. those are my errand days. it doesn't make sense for me to do laundry at 10 PM if i am going to bed at 11. nor will i wake up at 6 AM to do my laundry.
instead, punish the true gluttons out there - the corporations that have their lights on after work hours (downtown Toronto skyscrapers, i'm talkin' about you), the businesses that have their doors wide open have their AC blasting (Queen W), etc
I think it's great that condo dwellers can now access another electricity resource, but this article reads a bit like marketing for Bullfrog.
In installed capacity (i.e. MW) Ontario's electricity system is more like 25% renewable, not 3%, so anyone who pays an electricity bill in Ontario does use renewable electricity--it's just that it is not exclusively renewable. There are programs in Ontario where homeowners can generate their own electricity (net metering) and feed any excess onto the grid. Ontario has started a program which pays a higher price to renewable energy generators (it's called feed-in tariffs, or standard offer contracts), and these higher prices for electricity are being paid for by all electricity consumers who pay an electricity bill in Ontario (i.e. who are not necessarily Bullfrog buyers).
I agree with you that 100% renewable energy is ideal, but there is a lot more renewable electricity on the system than this article portrays, and Bullfrog is one option but not the only way to get green electricity.
Check the IESO's website:
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_supply.asp
What a weird time we live in, when people feel guilty about using energy.
Personally, I don't see the point of this Bullfrog service, unless it comes with a flag for your front lawn, or sticker for your apartment door, or something. What's the point of paying 30% more for the ethical choice, if no one you know can tell the difference?
Yeah, I'm aware of the "press releasishness" of it, but I don't have any ties to Bullfrog and I wrote the article without any input from them—it's the only green power retailer, so it's kinda Bullfrog or nothing right now. I figured the fact that it's now available to everyone was important to write an entry on, but the service offered by them also takes some explaining.
Apartment/condo residents don't have the option to generate their own electricity, and a condo board isn't going to spend what is a very significant amount of money (and perpetual maintenance) on solar tech. For those living in many condos and apartments, Bullfrog is the only way to go if they want to offset their electricity-related footprint.
The reality is that the government grants massive subsidies to coal, mass hydro, and nuke plants, but barely anything to a sustainable energy infrastructure. It's getting better—Ontario wants to have a certain percentage of renewable power generation in place by 2012—but producers of clean power are relatively small companies comprising a miniscule percentage of energy production. OPG is investing in gigantic, dirty "peak" plants to help take pressure off the grid, but they certainly aren't tackling a clean power infrastructure with the same zeal.
And I realize that renewable energy technology is somewhat in its infancy, implementation-wise, and is very expensive and is a long-term investment with lesser yields, but we're still decades behind where we should be when we could have been taking a leadership role.
chardy: You get a window sticker and stuff when you sign up, and you can also get free Bullfrog lawn signs that say "this home is Bullfrog-powered with 100% green electricity." And why shouldn't we feel guilty about using energy, considering how wasteful we are? If we were ecologically neutral, we wouldn't need to feel guilty, but we're nowhere close (and I'm just as guilty). I think people want to be more responsible, but there often aren't clear and easy ways to do this, considering the alternatives.
The thing is, if anyone actually had the gumption to think up some efficient, supply-side innovations in energy production-- massive windfarms, or whatever-- we wouldn't have to worry about how much we consume.
Decentralizing energy production doesn't make any sense. That's not really what Bullfrog are doing, but the idea of homeowners generating their own electricity seems incredibly wasteful to me.
Out of curiousity, aren't large dams sustainable? Isn't nuclear fairly clean? If carbon is really public enemy number one, it seems that some ugly trade-offs will have to be made, at least until solar and wind become something resembling cost-effective.
"What's the point of paying 30% more for the ethical choice, if no one you know can tell the difference?"
Well, for starters, the fact that it's ethical. It's the same as donating to charity annonymously. Why do something good just to get recognition from others?
Regarding the sq. ft. chart shown..
Good lord, where does my apartment fit in there? Its a 1BR and its only 250 sq. ft. There's no option for "walk-in closet." :P
The thing is, if anyone actually had the gumption to think up some efficient, supply-side innovations in energy production-- massive windfarms, or whatever-- we wouldn't have to worry about how much we consume.
A simple subscription to Scientific American will show you there's more innovation in renewable energy production today than there ever has been. The problem with all of it is that it's still in the experimental stages - the tidal energy turbine plant near Vancouver, or the giant "sail"-based windfarm in Norway, or concentrated-solar energy plants using mirrors in the American southwest - and none of it gets nearly as much government subsidization as good old gas and oil do.
In response to Marc's comments on lack of options, I agree very much, there is somewhat a lack of options in the electricity sector, and it's true that Bullfrog is the only green energy retailer. I also agree that it is probably unlikely, although not impossible, to convince a currently operating condominium company to install renewable energy by taking advantage of net metering or the standard offer contracts in Ontario.
In terms of having more options, offsets providers can achieve similar goals to what Bullfrog is offering, it's just that they are not exclusive to the electricity system. And there are many more offsets providers to choose from. There may even be some offsets projects geared specifically towards renewable electricity in Ontario.
Your article does underscore the desire from condominium dwellers to pay for renewable energy: it would be great to see more buyer/public pressure on developers of new buildings to produce better quality buildings, including the integration of better efficiency, and renewable energy, and then to see more developers respond.
I think I am just buyer beware, and would prefer that consumers know that there is more than one option. And I also had wanted to clarify that there is a fair bit of renewable electricity on the Ontario grid already, although it certainly can be improved enormously.
Though it has nothing to do with an electrical bill, I noticed in a recent Aeroplan statement that airline points can now be used to purchase carbon offset credits for your flight (Air Canada and WestJet already have carbon credit offerings).
There are incentives, but I really wish they were more widespread and simple for everyone, like an option to donate a buck at an ATM at the end of a transaction, or company-subsidized transit passes. My former company used to give out car allowances like candy, but when I asked if they would give transit-riding employees a Metropass each month as an eco-conscious bonus, I was shut down pretty quickly.