As we head into the new year, we are so grateful for our customers and our team for making it possible to create such a positive impact by using Provision’s CarbonBetter^® energy supply.

Home energy use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States (PNAS, 2020), but Provision customers are working to change that. In this post, we’ll recap the highlights of the impact we’ve made together in 2022.

How Our Customers Make a Difference – Automatically

Before we review our customers’ impact in 2022, let’s review how Provision customers can make a positive impact every time they use energy at home:

For each area, impact is calculated based on our customers’ billings in the impact month, but planting, funding, and offsetting may not happen in that month. These activities must align with planting seasons and project life cycles to be effective.

How Much Renewable Electricity Provision Customers Funded in 2022

Provision customers funded 93,103,000 kWh of clean energy generation in 2022! That’s enough to power over 10,000 homes for an entire year!

Renewable Energy Credits Explained

100% renewable electricity is included automatically in every Provision electricity supply plan, and we use renewable energy certificates, or RECs, to deliver on our clean energy promise.

Homes are connected to the power grid by transmission lines, and the electricity that’s supplied is derived from a variety of generation resources, both renewable and non-renewable. This is because when clean energy is generated and put on the grid, it’s mixed with other fuel sources there, making it difficult for environmentally conscious consumers to supply their homes with 100% clean energy.

Provision customers ensure more clean energy is put on the grid by funding renewable generators through the purchase of RECs. Provision carefully selects projects like those featured in this 2022 Impact Update to ensure that the steps we take today help build a better future.

Smithland Hydroelectric Plant

Provision purchased RECs from the Smithland Hydroelectric Facility, which is a run-of-the-river power plant located near Smithland, Kentucky. The project adds 76 MW of renewable energy to the region by diverting water from the existing dam through bulb turbines. It is located approximately 62 miles upstream of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, from where it derives power. The project generates an average annual output of 379 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to powering 35,371 homes every year.

Davidson County Landfill

The Davidson County Landfill is a municipal solid waste facility in Lexington, North Carolina. In June of 2009, the Davidson County Board of Commissioners established a project that is designed to collect and convert greenhouse gases produced at the landfill – mainly methane – into electricity. The project produces enough energy to power roughly 1,500 to 2,000 homes. The greenhouse gas emissions that are avoided by the technology in the landfill are equivalent to reducing more than 10,000 motor vehicles from the road annually.

The Cabinet Gorge Hydroelectric Dam

The Cabinet Gorge Hydroelectric Dam project is located on the Clark Fork River in Northern Idaho just west of the Montana Border. The reservoir itself extends into Montana. The dam was built for one purpose: to generate hydroelectric power. Prior to construction, builders used 32 tons of dynamite to blast 50,000 cubic yards of canyon rock to prepare the site. Due to an energy shortage in the Northwest United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, over 1,700 people worked around the clock to construct the dam in just 21 months. Owned and operated by Avista, the concrete gravity arch dam generates 263 megawatts every year—enough energy to power approximately 80,000 households annually.

The Goat Lake Hydroelectric Project

The Goat Lake Hydroelectric Project is a 4.0 MW facility located on Pitchfork Falls Creek in southeastern Alaska, 6.5 miles north of Skagway. Provision purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) for this project which generates an average of 17,110.8 mWh annually and powers the homes of local Alaskans. The lake is part of a larger hydroelectric project run by the Alaska Power and Telephone Company (AP&T) that first began in the Tongass National Forest in 1996.

How Many Trees Provision Customers Planted in 2022

In 2022, Provision customers funded the planting of 65,085 trees simply by using CarbonBetter® energy at home!

Trees are carbon-capturing superheroes! To address our carbon debt, we need to use less energy and use renewable energy when we can, but we also need to capture carbon that’s already in the atmosphere, and that’s what trees do best. Provision CarbonBetter® plans reduce the amount of carbon released through home energy use by including 100% carbon offset natural gas and 100% renewable electricity on all energy plans. Plus, all Provision plans plant trees, taking you from carbon neutral to CarbonBetter®.

OKO Forests

Provision customers have funded the planting of 67,000 trees so far in Ghana with OKO Forests and the Kokrobitey Institute. The OKO vision is that educated and empowered local communities play a vital role in the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. Small-scale farmers with the necessary knowledge of agroforestry can support the creation of carbon sinks to help address climate change while improving the quality of the soil, supporting biodiversity, and creating economic opportunities for local farmers and their communities through cash crops.

Agroforestry is a farming and reforestation practice that offers a unique opportunity for carbon sequestration while delivering significant additional benefits to local communities.

Provision customers are making a difference across the globe by supporting OKO in developing regenerative agroforestry systems that can be replicated at scale.

How Much Carbon Provision Customers Offset in 2022

Provision customers offset 55,994 tons of carbon in 2022! Per the EPA, that’s like avoiding almost 139 million miles of driving!

A carbon offset is a reduction or storage of carbon emissions that is used to compensate for emissions elsewhere. For Provision customers, this means offsetting the carbon released by home energy use, thereby making their impact “neutral.” Provision customers use 100% carbon offset natural gas and plant trees, taking their energy supply from carbon neutral to CarbonBetter®.

Hawk Mountain

The Hawk Mountain project is a carbon offset project at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in eastern Pennsylvania. The project contributes to conservation efforts by preserving forests and offsetting carbon emissions. The project is responsible for sequestering more than 47,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year, and Provision customers contributed to conservation and sequestration efforts by funding the purchase of carbon credits at the Sanctuary using CarbonBetter-certified clean energy.

Provision customers are helping to protect and reforest land throughout the United States because they’ve chosen Provision’s CarbonBetter® energy supply at home. Making a difference is as easy as turning on the lights.

Looking Ahead to 2023

As we head into 2023, we are focused on increasing our collective positive impact, powered by CarbonBetter® clean energy. Provision customers are automatically making a difference through funding clean energy, offsetting carbon, and planting trees.

Provision customers get an update each month on what impact they’ve personally made since they’ve chosen Provision for their energy supply, and it’s wonderful to see our positive impact grow each month.

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2023, and we’re honored to be your energy supplier in the years ahead.

---

Want to be included in our next impact update?

It’s easy to contribute to the positive impact we make each month. All Provision energy plans include CarbonBetter energy, which helps you make a difference while you use energy at home. Our customers help fund clean energy generation through renewable energy certificates, offset carbon through carbon credits, and plant trees to aid in reforestation and increase our natural carbon-capturing capabilities. It’s never too late to start using your energy for good.