If you’ve ever looked at an electrical bill in New York or Connecticut, you may have noticed the vague-sounding “system benefit charge.” Right now in New York, it’s 0.5238 cents per kilowatt-hour — for a $60 electric bill, all other taxes and fees included, the system benefit charge comes out to 77 cents. In Connecticut it hovers between $7-$10 a year per household.
Some, if not most, of those dollars end up in the state’s green bank. Only a few states and localities have a green bank, and not all of them are funded the same way. They’re not banks in the depository sense — they don’t offer checking or savings accounts. Instead, they’re state-sponsored entities that use their dedicated funding sources to make loans, provide credit enhancements or use other financial mechanisms to encourage private investment in clean and renewable energy.
Read more at Next City.