Walmart, famous for low prices, is America's largest grocer. Yet farmers' markets seem to be more popular than ever. At the farmers' market I can buy an heirloom tomato, but not heirloom electricity. At Walmart I can buy "dolphin safe" tuna, but not "eagle safe" wind power.
The way consumers buy everything from fresh produce, to telecommunications, to books (name just about any consumer good) has undergone radical transformation in the past decade or two. But we are still buying electricity the same way we purchased it from Samuel Insull back in the 1920's.
As I noted in a previous post, despite his misgivings about the economics of small scale solar, software billionaire Bill Gates has solar panels on his roof, because they are "cute" and he is rich. So why not? Why not let the rich and fashionable buy bespoke electricity at haute couture prices? The rest of us can buy our power at Walmart.
Instead, much of our energy policy is centered around having all ratepayers pay for the energy production preferences of a few, elite consumers. We should make greater use of a tool that already exists: green pricing programs, which allow wealthier consumers to pay a premium to feel better about their energy consumption.
Although green pricing programs have been popular where tried, I think we could learn something from the "conspicuous nonconsumption" movement and market haute couture electricity as an ultra-premium product. We can then use the extra revenue to make electricity affordable for the rest of us.
I've already solved the conspicuous part: those who buy the premium product can display a small, discrete sign outside their homes signalling their earth-friendly purchase of electricity.
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