Chuck Pruett

EPB officials say the number of customers willing to plunk down green cash for producing so-called green power has doubled.

“We’ve found plenty of people in the area who want it,” said Danna Bailey Cannon, EPB vice president of marketing and communications.

A total of 1,109 EPB customers have signed up for the Green Power Switch program offered by the Tennessee Valley Authority, said EPB spokeswoman Lacie Newton. EPB began offering the program in September 2001.

Overall, the program has 12,259 residential and 511 business customers, according to TVA’s Web site. The program’s revenues help expand the amount of renewable energy production, according to TVA.

The revenues help TVA add green power capacity and make generation more efficient. Solar panels in use today are five times more efficient than those 25 year ago, a utility official said.

The renewable power is produced by wind mills, methane gas burning as well as solar panels, including some at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga.

Customers can buy $4 increments, or blocks, of green power, with one block equaling 150 kilowatt hours of energy production, Ms. Cannon said. TVA asks businesses to buy at least five blocks for a total of $20, according to the agency’s Web site.

EPB is selling 1,041 blocks to residential customers and 2,999 blocks to commercial customers each month, Ms. Cannon said. The $4 charges are on top of what a customer pays in his monthly power bill.

Staff Photo by Dan Henry -- Solar panels in the Finley Stadium parking lot are one ways that Chattanooga is working to help make the city "greener."

Greenlife Grocery on Chattanooga’s North Shore is one of those commercial customers, Chief Executive Officer Chuck Pruett said. Being environmentally friendly is part of Greenlife’s philosophy, he said, and is good for business.

“We think it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “Our customers want us to be stewards and leaders in the green movement.”

Universities have been large commercial supporters of Green Power Switch in addition to businesses such as Greenlife, said TVA spokesman Gil Francis.

“Universities are very knowledgeable about energy sources,” he said. “People are interested because it’s renewable and it has no emissions.”