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“I like the idea of being emission-free.”
It’ll be a couple weeks before Richey Cook’s Nissan Leaf gets delivered to his home in Katy. But when it arrives, he’ll be ready. Cook will be the first in Texas to drive a mass-produced electric car powered by wind-generated electricity. He’ll be charging his car with his home charger, which was just installed in his garage. The electricity will be produced by wind farms right here in Texas. Cook says one of the reasons he’s making the switch to electric is to save money.
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“I was paying about $250 dollars a month in gas on my four-cylinder Mazda. And that’s gone up over $300 dollars. And this car is going to be around $45 dollars a month, and that’s using 11 cents a kilowatt which is the national average for electricity.”
Cook will be getting the electricity for his car through Austin-based Green Mountain Energy. The power company has just launched a home electricity service specifically for electric vehicle owners. Green Mountain Energy’s Helen Brauner says when Cook charges his battery at home the electricity won’t be coming from a fossil-fuel burning power plant, but from a renewable source.
“If you’re going to buy an electric vehicle and if you charge it with just traditional electricity then your electric vehicle is still essentially polluting because the generation of that electricity is the largest source of industrial air pollution in the United States.”
NRG Energy, the parent company of Green Mountain, is rolling out charging infrastructure for electric vehicles around Houston this year. NRG plans to install 25 chargers by Labor Day, which will be available for public use. But unlike Cook’s home charger, the electricity for the public charging stations won’t necessarily come from a renewable energy source.
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