Are you suggesting the transmission company would refuse the electricity from the wind mills if enough people aren't paying for the clean option?

I'm curious how this works. What happens if you pay for clean and the wind isn't blowing at night? What happens if everyone paying for clean turns on their appliances and the demand outstrips the clean supply?

I highly doubt there are blackouts in these occasions so it seems like someone is getting screwed.

There is a secondary marketplace of "green energy futures".

edit: Going from memory... The fine print on your electric bill in Texas says something like: "If we, the electricity provider, don't have enough renewable energy to meet your current need, we promise to offset the amount of non-renewable energy we provide to you now with a future purchase of the same amount of renewable energy from an electricity generator." In other words, you get the electricity today, they get the money today, but they have to buy more renewable energy in the future.

If people aren't paying the generators, they don't maintain their windmills and can't send electricity into distribution. In Texas you pay the retail company that's selling you the power. The distribution is a wholesale company that just sells the generator distribution capacity and maintains the lines.

So yes, if people stopped buying from companies selling wind and solar only the companies selling gas and coal would be putting energy into the grid.

All the electricity produced gets mixed in.

To incentivize renewable energy production, "Renewable Energy Credits" are used for the bookkeeping of what kinds of energy is being generated, and are created when energy is produced by a renewable provider (handwaving a bit here...)

Consumers and businesses can have their electric plan provider purchase these credits per their usage to make sure they are getting the correct portion that actually comes from a renewable source.

So the demand and pricing is adjustable determined by the pricing of the credits.

Or "screwed".

It's pretty likely that the literature describing the plan mentions what happens when they can't buy renewable power.

> "Are you trying to tell me that they won't build more windmills..."

The tilting at windmills joke comes to mind :-)

Honestly, first off the article says that it seems that gas is less competitive than renewable, so there are already market incentives in Texas to build windmills.

A lot of the money for windmill power simply ends up in General Electric's (the major US vendor for windmills) pockets.

Also, I think ones energy is best put in doing what one can do to minimize energy consumption using LED lights in place of incandescents, using mass transit instead of one's automobile and working with city council in Dallas and other major Texas cities to encourage more production of mass transit.

Also, doing what one can to turn up air conditioning from 72 to 76 or 78 in Dallas will save substantial amount of carbon-based power generation.

There is also the use of microturbine technology that can be used for trigeneration meaning that water chillers for air-conditioning as well as electric power from natural gas. This is very efficient and if it received the same financial incentives and wind and solar probably much more cost effective.

> A lot of the money for windmill power simply ends up in General Electric's (the major US vendor for windmills) pockets.

I actively prefer it if GE (etc.) makes money building windmills.

To switch to renewables, you have to build new infrastructure. That means the people who manufacture the equipment are going to make money. And they should make money! That's their reward for being part of the solution.

Not to mention, it encourages them do more R&D because of the potential for better profits. And it encourages competitors to join in, which is even better.