Amid all the shake-ups (mainly cancellations) of various solar energy schemes, Australia's original renewable energy scheme - GreenPower - seems to have dropped off the radar. Does it even still exist?

Well, yes. And a large number of Australian residents and businesses still subscribe to the scheme, which involves paying a premium on your electricity bill, used by your energy supplier to purchase renewable energy - mainly wind, hydro or biofuel from burning landfill.

That renewable energy must be in addition to the energy supplier's mandatory Renewable Energy Target, thus increasing the total amount of renewable energy generated in Australia.

But GreenPower has fallen from a 2009 peak when 904,716 customers, purchasing more than two million MWh. By June 30, 2011, that had dropped to 739,854 customers.

There are three probably reasons to customers feeling the squeeze of higher electricity prices, the media focus in recent years on solar rebates and feed-in tariffs, and a decline in media/public concern about climate change since Copenhagen in 2009.

Yet three quarters of a million consumers and businesses are still willing to pay extra to support clean energy. GreenPower is still the simplest way for Australians to "go green" and reduce their carbon footprint. But it is in dire need of some love and (media) attention.

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This year is shaping up to be a bumper year for renewable energy in Australia.

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