Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), also known as "green tags" or "renewable energy certificates", in effect work as a people and business-powered subsidy to renewable energy producers.
The purchase of one credit represents one megawatt hour of clean, green, emissions-free electricity (the average person in the US each year consumes more than 12 megawatt hours of electricity). Though the purchaser of the credit doesn't actually use the electricity himself, the clean power produced is fed into the electric utility grid where it is used by others. This makes it possible for less electricity to be produced from fossil fuels and other non-renewables. From the credit purchaser's perspective, this is often called an energy "offset": compensating for the environmental impacts of consuming un-green electricity. The goal of many REC purchasers is to become "carbon neutral", or to offset entirely the carbon emissions that are the result of electricity consumption.
A typical price for residential RECs using solar power is 2.5 cents per kWh. Using an average annual consumption rate of 12 mWh per person, the annual cost to offset your carbon emissions that are the result of electricity consumption would be $300.
A partial list of REC products can be found here:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/markets/certificates.shtml?page=1
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