Unless you're hooking up your rural house to a turbine, your comment is misleading.
The power going to your house will still be a mix of coal, natural gas, wind, solar, and others.
The power going to your house will still be a mix of coal, natural gas, wind, solar, and others.
Granted, many understand that and are perfectly fine with it as you're helping to effect change. However, a lot of folks have been really confused by that marketing line, so it deserves clarification. HN users are probably more educated than the general public of course, but I work in this industry and strive for clarity.
I could be misunderstanding something, but it seems that two neighbors(one using “wind”, the other using standard power) that share the same power line simply cannot be getting power from different sources.
Edit: Hmm, now I’m getting downvoted, still without an explaination.
Alternatively, if folks suddenly demand wind and the supply is not there, I'd think there should be some sort of way for the companies to earmark money to meet the wind demand. This is especially true if the company is charging an optional premium fee for "green energy".
If a company with renewable engergy production produces X kWh then they can sell that to N customers as renewable electricity even if they deliver it through a grid where coal power electrons are also distributed.
If demand for renewable energy increases (more customers get the contracts from these companies that produce renewable) then those companies can expand or more such companies can enter the market.
So it’s about production/consumption balance of various ways of producing energy, nothing else. This isn’t strange or controversial in any way.