Jessica Laidlaw - with the help of Jolin, Jan 2007
Finding greener renewable energy sources is arguably one of the most important issues we face globally today. It could be argued that it is the most important issue we face for the health of the beautiful planet we call home and for future generations. Our energy usage has gone up over the last few years not down as was hoped, which means our damaging carbon emissions have gone up also. Energy consumption in 2001 was higher than in any other year over the last thirty years. Overall energy consumption has increased by 13% since 1970 and by 115% since 1990. By 2000 the total amount of electricity consumed for the domestic household increased by 63% since 1970 (statistics from the UK Department of Trade and Industry website www.dti.gov.uk/files/file11250.pdf ). The government is committed to using 10% renewable electrity sources for our energy needs by 2010 and to double that by 2020.
Green Suppliers
Many people feel moved to improve the situation by choosing green energy suppliers for their home electricity usage (such as Ecotricity, Good Energy, Green Energy and nPower Juice). This seems like a good idea; after all, the only way we can improve the carbon emissions situation we find ourselves in is to act as individuals to change things. By switching to renewable energy sources and thus creating more demand for them, hopefully there will be an increase in supply.
However after reading the article Green Electricity: “Are you being conned?” by Jeremy Smith in The Ecologist (www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=428), I begun to question just how green these so called green suppliers are. After all, even though we may pay our bills to these suppliers, our electricity still comes from the national grid, just like everybody else’s. So how much greener are these suppliers really?
Well, it depends on your point of view. What constitutes a green electricity company? After researching other companies I found to my dismay that Ecotricity and Good Energy are the only companies that offer anything close to a truly green energy supply. So I chose to focus on these two companies.
Ecotricity
Ecotricity are one of the best known green electricity supplier. They were also the first green electricity supplier in the world, set up in 1995. According to the green energy supplier information website Whichgreen.com, Ecotricity spend around £900 per customer per year on building up the renewable energy infrastructure of the UK (this means they invest in creating new renewable energy sources like wind farms etc). They plan to spend £40 million per year on renewable energy infrastructure by 2008. This is a good thing it would seem and compared to their leading competitors Good Energy and nPower Juice (who spend £0 and £8 rper customer espectively); they are way ahead on this aspect of greener energy supply. However, some would argue that as Whichgreen was set up by and run by Ecotricity, then it must be biased. This may be the case, but it has to be said many of the figures Whichgreen use are from independent energy regulators like Ofgem and Whichgreen provides a place on the site for other companies to explain and defend their own figures. Good Energy do claim that they will starting investing in new renewable energy generators in a few more years when they have more capital. It remains to be seen if they will.
Good Energy
So it would seem that Ecotricity are indeed a green energy supplier in one way: that is, building up the renewable energy infrastructure. However, this is not the whole story. Good Energy, one of Ecotricity’s leading competitors, may spend nothing on building up renewable energy infrastructure yet, but their energy supply comes from 100% renewable sources (www.good-energy.co.uk and www.electricityinfo.org). They are very transparent about this and it seems that this makes them green indeed. (Good Energy will put the same amount of electricity from100% renewable sources back into the national grid as the amount you use.) Ecotricity’s energy supply is not from 100% renewable sources; they use more coal, nuclear and natural gas than renewable energy (around 60% non - renewable compared to 20% renewable for 2005 according to the green electricity website electricityinfo.org).
Good Energy are also helping generate demand for renewable energy infrastructure in a different way than investing in building new renewable electricity generating infrastructure. This way is by retiring their ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates). ROCs each represent a certain amount of renewably-generated electricity. The Government requires all electricity companies to hold enough ROCs to cover around 10% of their total output. You can get ROCs by either generating renewable electricity or by buying them from another company. Most companies sell any excess ROCs. So, for instance, if nPower generates 15% of its electricity from wind, they will sell ROCs representing 5% of their generation to another electricity company that doesn't generate enough renewable electricity to meet their obligations.
Retirement of ROCs means their total cancellation so that they cannot be used by any other supplier to comply with the government's Renewable Obligation. Retirement of ROCs has the effect of increasing the target for renewable capacity over and above the government target of 10%. Good Energy retired the equivalent of an additional 75 of its ROCs for the phase 2002 – 2003 renewables market, effectively increasing the government's target and therefore stimulating increased investment in new renewable generation capacity.
Juliet Davenport, Chief executive of Good Energy says, “In addition to supplying 100% renewable electricity, one of Good Energy's targets is to grow the renewable electricity market. By retiring additional ROCs we are both achieving this and setting a bench mark for others to follow”. (www.good-energy.co.uk/PR/GE_040916_ROCS.pdf)
It may seem that Good Energy are increasing our renewable electricity infrastructure in a less direct way than Ecotricity, but it is indeed an extremely valid way. Also Good Energy does buy electricity from small scale renewable electricity schemes. This reduces the environmental impact of renewable electricity infrastructure. But I am not sure if these small scale schemes can really meet all our needs and I feel we do need to invest in larger schemes as Ecotricity is doing.
Which is Greener?
So we are left with the decision: which is the greener?
- a company who spends money on building up the renewable energy infrastructure of the UK but doesn’t supply 100% renewable energy to its customers at this time,
- or a company whose energy supply is currently 100% renewable but does not fund the growth of our renewable energy infrastructure directly. Though they instead use retirement of ROCs to do this.
It is a difficult decision and perhaps there is no right answer, only personal opinion.
I feel that Ecotricity is tackling the carbon emission problem in an effective way by investing in renewable electricity infrastructure. However, they really need work on reducing the amount of non renewable energy they use to supply their customers and they also need to look at their ROC usage. Good Energy do indeed offer a way of using 100% renewable energy now, and are helping to build up the demand for renewable electricity. However they need to look into more direct ways that they can help build the renewable energy infrastructure, as this is the only way we can really move away from fuels such as coal, gas or nuclear and make a real improvement in terms of our impact on the climate and environment.
Either way, if we are to make a difference personally, we will each have to make the decision as to who to use ourselves with our best judgment.
