Do you read and absorb lists as much as I do? Maybe growing up memorizing baseball standings and box scores every morning contributed to my current fascination for lists. Or David Letterman’s Top Ten.  Or American Idol’s list of five remaining contestants.

We are proud to be a big part of some lists that the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced last week: they listed the most successful green power utility programs in the country.  Four partners of Community Energy made the top ten in three of the lists: total renewable energy sales, total number of customer participants, and customer participation rate.

As a supplier or marketer to 17 different electric utility or competitive electric supplier programs, we serve over 130,000 clean energy customers around the country. NREL highlighted Community Energy-affiliated partnerships with PECO (the Philadelphia area), Naperville (a municipal utility in Illinois), Energy East (a combination of NYSEG and RG&E in upstate New York) and National Grid (with programs in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island).

We are extremely excited by the recognition but mostly are grateful to our customers who made these programs so successful. A big thanks to all of you who help drive and expand this country’s supply of clean, homegrown energy supply. For more information on NREL and to view the complete lists and rankings visit: http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2008/348.html.

The PECO Wind Program in Pennsylvania

• 5th in total number of participants with 38,548
• 10th in total sales with 160 million kWh sold

The City of Naperville in Illinois 

• 6th in customer participation rate, 6.7 percent

National Grid’s GreenUp program in New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts 

• 9th in total sales with over 180 million kWh sold
• 7th in number of participants with 24,429

NYSEG and RG&E (Energy East) Catch the Wind program in New York

• 10th in total number of participants with 19,520