Green Mountain Energy is a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 company that offers clean electricity products, and carbon offset

Carbon offset

A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere....

s to residential and commercial customers.

History

Green Mountain Energy Company began in Vermont in August 1997 as an offshoot of Green Mountain Power to take advantage of electricity deregulation around the country. The company moved headquarters to its current location in Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

 in September 2000. Competitors of Green Mountain include Reliant Energy

Reliant Energy

RRI Energy, Inc. , based in Houston, Texas, United States, was an energy company that provided electricity to wholesale customers in the United States. The company was one of the largest independent power producers in the nation with more than 14,000 megawatts of power generation capacity across...

, Texas Power

Texas Power

Texas Power is a retail electricity provider serving all deregulated electricity areas in Texas. They are located in Arlington, Texas. Texas Power bills customers for electric service provided by the power distribution companies....

, TXU

TXU

Energy Future Holdings Corporation is an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The company was known as TXU until its $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs...

, Gexa Energy

Gexa Energy

Gexa Energy, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is an American retail electricity provider which sells electricity service to residential and commercial customers in all deregulated markets in Texas.The company is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources...

, and Direct Energy

Direct Energy

Direct Energy is a North American retailer of energy and energy services. The company was founded in 1986. With over six million customer relationships in Canada and the United States, it is the largest energy and home services retailer in North America. The current President and Chief Executive...

. It was reported in September, 2010 that the sale of Green Mountain Energy to NRG

NRG Energy

NRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company headquartered in West Windsor Township, New Jersey, near Princeton.-Electrical Power Generation Operations:...

 was pending regulatory approval.

Company Structure

In Texas, Green Mountain directly serves residential electricity customers who live in a deregulated utility service territory. The company upholds that it is the only retail electric provider in Texas dedicated to cleaner electricity.

Green Mountain also partners with utilities in regulated markets in the U.S., such as Portland General Electric

Portland General Electric

Portland General Electric is an electrical utility based in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - half of the inhabitants of Oregon...

 (PGE) in Oregon, to offer renewable energy products to their customers. Additionally, Green Mountain participates in multi-supplier utility partnering programs in New York and New Jersey.

Beyond their residential service, Green Mountain has a commercial and industrial division devoted to providing clean electricity to businesses and organizations. This sector began in December 2002, and offers corporations the opportunity to decrease their CO₂ emissions by purchasing renewable energy

Renewable energy

Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...

.

BeGreen is a division of Green Mountain that offers carbon offset products to individuals and businesses nationwide. The BeGreen website includes an online calculator to help individuals determine their carbon footprint and offers carbon offsets to neutralize it.

See also

• Deregulation of the Texas Electricity Market
  Deregulation of the Texas Electricity Market
  Electricity deregulation in Texas was the result of the coming into force of Texas Senate Bill 7 on January 1, 2002. According to the law, deregulation is to be phased in over several years....
  
  
• BP and Not Green?http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-23-how-green-is-green-mountain-energy
• Electric Reliability Council of Texas
• Green Energy
• Brazos Wind Farm
  Brazos Wind Farm
  The Brazos Wind Farm, also known as the Green Mountain Energy Wind Farm at Brazos, is located in Borden and Scurry counties in Texas. It has 160 wind turbines, each rated at one megawatt and supplied by Mitsubishi, and was completed in December 2003...
  
  
• Green Mountain Wind Energy Center
  Green Mountain Wind Energy Center
  The Green Mountain Wind Energy Center is a wind power plant near Garrett, Somerset County, Pennsylvania with eight Nordex 1.3 MW turbines that began commercial operation in May 2000. This was the first commercial wind farm constructed in Pennsylvania...
  
  , located in Pennsylvania
  Pennsylvania
  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...