If you are concerned about the environment enough to look at electric cars then you should really be looking at using green power. This doesn’t necessarily mean spending thousands on putting in a solar power system in your home (although that is a good option), it could be something as simple as electing to use the green power option from your electricity provider.

 Currently all states in Australia have a green power option where you pay around 30% more for your power but all the money goes towards creating new green power generation. For example here in WA our current power price is a little over $0.13 per kWh, to switch to green power it will cost you an extra $0.044 per kWh. The reason for the extra cost is to allow your electricity provider to invest in new and cleaner power technologies and plants.

 With all the talk about the environment you would think that everyone would be switching to green power, unfortunately the uptake has been rather disappointing, particularly in WA which has less than 6,000 customers in total using green power compared to VIC with over 235,000 customers. Even in VIC though that is only a small fraction of the total amount of people who rely on electricity.

	WA	ACT	SA	QLD	NSW	VIC
Residential Customers	4,988	9,082	62,229	105,102	156,187	228,389
Commercial Customers	635	410	1,562	2,607	11,736	7,363
Total Customers	5,623	9,492	63,791	107,709	167,923	235,752

* Figures obtained from the National Greenpower Accreditation Program June 2007 quarterly report.

 Because of the way the scheme is structured if you switch to green power then the more power you use the more money goes in to green power production and the more infrastructure gets created. Because of this switching your power usage from petrol to green power electricity is not only reducing your carbon footprint but at the same time investing in renewable energy infrastructure in Australia giving you twice the bang for your buck.

 So even if you are just starting to consider moving to an electric vehicle you should be jumping over to green power right now.

 You can find out more information from your local electricity provider or by visiting www.greenpower.gov.au