Green Options

A new initiative by New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACENY) is making it possible for residents of New York to buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) through three easy steps on a simple, new website. The website is called Green Power NYC.

The program is starting off fairly limited, but is clearly helpful to consumers and the environment and is looking to grow.

BuildingGreen.com has a very good and useful piece about energy measurement from the December 2007 Environmental Building News.

The article, titled “Energy Metrics: Btus, Watts, and Kilowatt-Hours,” helps explain the differences between different terms such as kilowatt-hours (kWh) and British thermal units (BTU) and when and how they should be used. This is good information for everyone to understand, since we all use energy in our homes and workplaces. Practically anyone interested in improving energy efficiency in a building will be using these terms frequently and should have some understanding of the language.