how does buying renewable energy from a third party supplier work?

Question

how does buying renewable energy from a third party supplier work?

In: 2

Answer 1

In simple terms you are buying renewable energy credits from suppliers. There is no difference or way to track individual electrons (“pieces” of electricity), so when someone generates electricity from a renewable source (like solar panels or a wind farm) they can sell the electricity as well as a renewable energy credit. That credit can be bought by a company to offset dirty generation or to sell to you as a consumer. Even homeowners with rooftop solar can often sell credits each year for the amount of energy their system produced.