Cooperative environmental and life benefit exchange system

A cooperative environmental and life benefit exchange system, comprising:

• a grid network including a plurality of transmitting facilities for transmitting available electrical energy;
• a plurality of energy generation systems cooperating within the grid network, the energy generation systems include renewable energy generation systems operated by one or more utility companies and by one or more consumers for generating electrical energy provided to the grid network;
• at least one electric meter located at a site of the one or more consumers, the at least one electric meter measuring an amount of electrical energy exchanged between the one or more consumers and the one or more utility companies at the site over a time period;
• a plurality of life benefits each acquired at a benefit cost, the plurality of life benefits selected from health insurance, life insurance, educational assistance, retirement savings, housing allowance, and food allowance;
• a data processor;
• and
• a memory operatively coupled to the data processor with a plurality of executable program instructions stored therein, the memory including:
• a plurality of consumer accounts of the one or more consumers storing information related to energy purchase and sale transactions documenting the amount of electrical energy measured by the electric meter exchanged between the one or more utility companies and the one or more consumers, the energy purchase and sale transactions including:
• purchases of the amount of electrical energy measured by the meter generated from renewable energy generation systems from the grid network by the one or more consumers and used at the sites of the one or more consumers, and
• sales of the amount of electrical energy measured by the meter generated from renewable energy generation systems operated by the one or more consumers and sold back to the one or more utility companies by the one or more consumers over the grid network;
• a plurality of credits accumulated by the one or more consumers in the plurality of the consumer accounts resulting from the energy purchase and sale transactions;
• one or more renewable energy-to-credit conversion rates;
• and
• one or more credit-to-value redemption rates;
• the data processor configured by the plurality of executable program instructions to:
• determine a value for each of the plurality of credits within the exchange system and an amount of the plurality of credits assigned to each of the plurality of consumer accounts by:
• monitoring the energy purchase and sale transactions;
• assigning the value of each credit corresponding to a predetermined amount of the amount of electrical energy measured by the meter generated from renewable energy generation systems by one of:
• receiving, by the data processor, the value for and the amount of the plurality of credits allocated to the one or more consumers as calculated by the one or more utility companies operating the renewable energy generation systems;
• and
• calculating, by the data processor, the value for and the amount of the plurality of credits allocated to the one or more consumers by applying the one or more renewable energy-to-credit conversion rates to the predetermined amount of the amount of electrical energy measured by the meter, an applied one of the one or more renewable energy-to-credit conversion rates selected depending on the amount of electrical energy measured by the meter being one of:
• purchased by the one or more consumers from the grid network in energy purchase and sale transactions and used at the site of the one or more consumers;
• and
• generated by generation systems operated by the one or more consumers and sold back to the grid network by the one or more consumers in the energy purchase and sale transactions;
• initiate a redemption process to redeem a predetermined amount of and value of the plurality of credits accumulated in one or more of the plurality of consumer accounts at the one or more credit-to-value redemption rates to provide a redemption value;
• wherein when the credit being redeemed is based on renewable energy purchased from the grid network, the data processor sets the credit-to-value redemption rate based on a percentage of revenue received by the one or more utility companies operating the renewable energy generation systems providing the electrical energy to the grid network that is purchased by and used at the site of by the one or more consumers;
• and
• when the credit being redeemed is based on renewable energy generated by and sold back to the grid network by the one or more consumers, the data processor sets the credit-to-value redemption rate based on at least one of:
• revenue received by the one or more utility companies operating the plurality of energy generation systems and trading credits in a commodities exchange;
• and
• a fixed monetary value remitted by the one or more utility companies operating the plurality of energy generation systems and receiving a benefit in achieving compliance with regulatory mandates for providing renewable energy to the grid network;
• and
• the data processor calculates the redemption value by applying the set credit-to-value redemption rate to the predetermined amount of and value for the plurality of credits in the one or more of the plurality of consumer accounts;
• and
• remit the redemption value by the data processor to a third party providing one or more of the life benefits to satisfy the benefit cost for acquiring, by the one or more consumers, the one or more of the life benefits or portions thereof.