You’ve cut back on your energy use and changed your lifestyle to be more environmentally friendly. Now you want to invest in renewable energy. In Rhode Island, that can be as simple as paying an electric bill.

Rhode Islanders can support various renewable energy projects across New England through National Grid’s GreenUp program, which allows residents to tack on an additional charge to support renewable energy.

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Your turn: How much do you care about conservation?

Your turn: Would you use energy from alternative sources?

--- Gallery: R.I. efforts to use energy from alternative sources

Conservation isn't sexy, but it's a simple way to start

To sort out energy options, ask questions, get references

Related links: Web sites and contact information for energy audits

More: Read other stories in this 5-part series

Contrary to popular belief, customers who sign up for the program aren’t buying renewable energy for direct home use. Instead, the money goes to certificates, or certified notices, sold by renewable-energy companies, which in turn supply energy to the electric grid.

To buy certificates, consumers can call National Grid or go to its Web site — or get certificates directly from the energy producers, or companies that have cropped up to sell the certificates. Some of the certificate programs — those involving nonprofit companies — are tax deductible.

But consumers should be careful. Bill Burtis, communications manager for Clean Air-Cool Planet, a New Hampshire environmental nonprofit, recommends those interested in the certificates research the companies they are dealing with. (More on that later.)

A total of 4,575 people, or 0.9 percent of all Rhode Island energy customers, have signed up for GreenUp, said National Grid spokesman David Graves. The program began in 2004 and currently offers renewable-energy certificates from three companies — People’s Power & Light, Sterling Planet and Community Energy.

ALL OF THE programs have their own twists.

People’s Power & Light, a Providence environmental nonprofit, and its sister organization, the Massachusetts Energy Consumer’s Alliance, offer the New England GreenStart program. It has two options — 50-percent and 100-percent renewable energy, which roughly average out to $7.75 and $14.88 per month for a resident that uses 620 kilowatt hours, the energy used by an average Rhode Islander.

(While the program’s prices, like others, sound as if consumers are directly buying renewable energy, the cost is more like a donation to the selected project. As stated before, consumers who choose to pay the additional fee are getting electricity from the same source as those who don’t — the grid, which gets a small fraction of its energy from renewable resources, such as wind and hydroelectricity.)

About 7,500 people in Rhode Island and Massachusetts participate in New England GreenStart, contributing about $1 million, said Omay Elphick, deputy director of People’s Power & Light.

The program’s renewable energy sources are scattered throughout New England, with some electricity generated in Rhode Island, said Elphick. Most of the renewable energy comes from hydroelectricity, followed by wind, biomass (the burning of natural materials such as wood) and solar.

Sterling Planet, based in Georgia, offers a flat certificate fee of $7.50 a month for 150 kilowatt hours of electricity from wind, landfill gas and small hydroelectricity plants. The company, founded in 2000, is one of the country’s biggest sellers of renewable-energy certificates. It partners with more than 30 utility companies across the country, including in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Florida.

A few hundred Rhode Islanders and about 12,000 Connecticut residents are signed up for the program, said Bob Maddox, Sterling Planet’s Northeast manager.

Community Energy, a wind energy developer and marketer based in Radnor, Pa., sells certificates from wind turbines scattered throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois. The company offers three options, 50-percent and 100-percent wind power and a mixture of wind and water power, from New England hydroelectricity plants, said Paul Copleman, the company’s public relations manager. The monthly prices for an average Rhode Islander can range from $6.20 to $12.40.

The company has more than 100,000 customers throughout the Northeast, Illinois and Colorado, Copleman said, but declined to say how many customers the company had in Rhode Island.

Copleman said the company uses certificate funds to invest in new wind farms. Community Energy — part of one of the world’s largest electricity and renewable-energy companies, Iberdrola, of Bilbao, Spain — plans to build a wind farm in Lempster, N.H., and has proposed one for Worcester County, Mass.

BESIDES BUYING renewable-energy certificates through utilities, environmentally conscious consumers can buy directly from private companies and nonprofit organizations. And they can also buy carbon offsets, a contract with a third party to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

The market is relatively new, which makes selecting a renewable energy or carbon offset company a complex process. Unlike other businesses, the carbon offsets market is unregulated and it could be difficult to separate legitimate businesses from scam artists.

Most companies aren’t likely to have a long track record, and finding customers who can talk about the quality of the product may be difficult, said Burtis, of Clean Air-Cool Planet.

There are, he says, some ways to make sure the company you’re dealing with is reliable: Research the company; ask specific questions about where the renewable energy certificates and offsets come from and what standard the business uses to provide its services.

A reputable company should use an industry standard to show its services are credible or point to other companies with which it can be compared. A company should also be able to prove that it doesn’t sell the same offsets and certificates to multiple buyers.

One recognized evaluation system for renewable energy and companies is the Green-e logo, which is administered by the Center for Resources Solutions, an environment nonprofit based in San Francisco.

Another reputable label system is done by The Gold Standard, a Swiss nonprofit foundation that evaluates carbon market companies for the sustainable and environmental quality of their projects.

To educate the public, Clean Air-Cool Planet compiled “A Consumer’s Guide to Retail Offset Providers,” which evaluated 30 renewable-energy businesses and gave 8 companies a high-performance rating. The report also offers a detailed glossary of environmental terms.

Related Web sites:

•National Grid’s GreenUp energy providers:

Rhode Island — www.nationalgridus.com/narragansett/home/energychoice/4_green up_provider.asp

Massachusetts — www.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/home/energychoice/4_green up_provider.asp

•People’s Power & Light: www.ripower.org

•Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance: www.massenergy.com/Index.html

•Sterling Planet: www.sterlingplanet.com/RI/buyRI.php

•Clean Air-Cool Planet: www.cleanair-coolplanet.org

mlee@pressofac.com