(TL;DR: sign up for a community solar project to save 5-10%)

Yes and no...RIE does pass the wholesale cost of the electric supply, but it's at the "default blend" (my term, not a technical one) of power generation, which is roughly 50% natural gas, 25% nuclear, 15% renewables, and 10% hydroelectric for us (more detail here). So the wholesale cost for that energy is a weighted average of those sources...gas for $$$, nuclear for $$, solar for $, hydro for $$.

But you can pay less than that wholesale cost by changing the blend of power generation you get...if you can change your blend to 50% renewable, 25% nuclear, and 25% gas, that total weighted average cost will be lower.

Enter deregulated supply and Community Solar projects that allow you to do just that. Join a community solar project, and a larger portion of the generation^1 for your power will come from solar, which will lower your total blended cost, while supporting/stimulating the market for renewable energy.

Official link for more info, or keep reading for my mostly-accurate summary of how it works: https://energy.ri.gov/renewable-energy/solar/community-solar

^1 my summary: it's wonky because it's all the same electrons in the same wires, so we/they use Renewable Energy Credits that are basically an accounting tool to track an imaginary unit of power from a generator and to a user. Kind of like donating to an anti-hunger charity, where your $10 feeds 100 kids. It's not like they take your exact $10 to the store then buy 100 meals for specific children that are fed by you...they just know that with their operating budget of $100,000 per month, they are able to supply the equivalent of 1 million meals.

Anyway, to manage all that, there are four parties involved:

1. You

2. RIE

3. An energy management company, which will be Arcadia or Common Energy for us

4. The actual solar farm

You will pay the management company, who then pays RIE and the generator. You save money, RIE gets their generation needs fulfilled, the solar farm gets a return on their investment, and the management company gets a cut too...all hinging on the fact that it's cheaper to generate solar power than gas power.

To illustrate, here are some made up numbers that ignore the REC accounting for simplicity (at the expense of accuracy):

Current state: 75% gas, 25% solar

• Gas generation cost: $0.20/kWh

• Solar generation cost: $0.10/kWh

• Weighted average generation cost, you pay RIE: $0.175/kWh

Community Solar: 50% solar, 50% gas

• Weighted average generation cost: $0.15/kWh

• RIE pays the solar farm: $0.10/kWh

• The management company pays the solar farm: $0.05/kWh

• You pay the management company: $0.165/kWh

• The management company keeps the remaining $0.015/kWh