Many of our readers are interested in renewable energy, and for some of you there’s a simple and easy way to get your electricity from renewable sources — many utilities offer a green power option.

If you’re looking for more information on green power in the United States, the U.S. Department of Energy has some helpful information about green power programs, including a map and chart showing where they’re offered.

We’d like to hear more about your experiences with green power. Is it available where you live? How does the price compare to what you would otherwise pay for electricity? Why have you — or haven’t you — chosen this option? You can share your thoughts by posting a comment below.

Photo by Istockphoto/Nicholas Homrich

On Monday the Environmental Protection Agency recognized 20 Green Power partners for generating the most green electricity on site.

The amount of renewable electricity generated by these partners could power 61,000 American homes annually.

The top five partners from the list of 20 are Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, City of San Diego, San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant and CalPortland. The entire list is available on the EPA website.

“These companies are leading a nationwide move to the clean energy economy, one that can create million of jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and protect against global climate change,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.  “Our Green Power Partnership leaders are setting the standard for our clean energy future.”

The green power generated by the partners came from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas and hydropower. The partners then use the on-site energy directly rather than sending it to the central power plant.

The EPA said that the 20 partners are generating and consuming more than 736 million kilowatt hours annually.

BY BOJAN FATOR/ISTOCKPHOTO

I’d love to be able to say that my electricity comes from solar panels or a backyard wind turbine, but nope, I must admit, it comes from the grid. (My household does purchase green tags to offset our electricity use, but that’s another story.)

But here’s an interesting question: If your electricity comes from the grid, how can you find out what fuels it comes from? Different energy options have different costs and benefits. For example, is it possible that your utility gets some of its power from a wind farm? How about a nuclear power plant? How much of it comes from coal?

You can find out by using this nifty feature on the EPA web site. If you live in the United States, all you have to do is type in your ZIP code and identify your utility, and it gives you a couple of handy graphs and links that tell you which fuels the electricity comes from in your region, how that relates to pollution and how it compares to national averages.

When I typed in my ZIP Code, it showed that here in northeast Kansas our electricity comes predominantly from coal — which unfortunately is associated with a lot of greenhouse gas pollution. And you can see from the graph that our fuel mix does in fact produce more carbon dioxide pollution than the national average.

So if you’d like to find out where your electricity comes from, just try the link and find out. And if you haven’t already, now is a great time to learn more about green power options from your utility, or other renewable energy options for your home.