Gone With The Wind: the heroes and villains of green energy in the U.K.
The Good, the Bad, and the Unsustainable.
In some ways, the eco energy industry of the U.K. is a bit like the Wild West. It’s new, fairly unexplored territory for consumers and producers alike, with much debate about where things ought to be — both geographically and morally.
Yet, as the U.K. traverses (from home) the Covid-19 situation, it’s turned out to be a good chance for us to assess how we can have a greener and more eco friendly lifestyle once we finally return to normality. Since the lockdown we’ve made great progress, with renewable means becoming the largest source of domestically-produced electricity, contributing 37 per cent, while gas contributed 32 per cent and nuclear 22 per cent.
So why stop there? Let’s start seriously looking into who supplies our energy, and how they generate it.
Following a very informative article published by Which, on the not-so-green, green energy companies, it was revealed that only 2 out of the UK’s 22 eco energy suppliers: “ consistently generate enough renewable electricity themselves to match customer use, or buy the equivalent directly from generators”. So, what are the other 20 doing if they aren’t actually generating renewable energy? They’re still certainly calling themselves green!
Greenwashing with REGOs
As it turns out, the majority of ‘green’ suppliers assessed by Which, only partially — or in some senses — actually supply renewable energy to their customers. Things turn even uglier when you do some research into the loopholes suppliers are jumping through to call themselves ‘100% renewable’.
Let me introduce you to Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin certificates or ‘REGO’ certificates. Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, issues one REGO certificate per megawatt hour (MWh) of eligible renewable output to generators of renewable electricity. The purpose of the certificate is to prove to the final customer that a given share of energy was produced from renewable sources. However, you can also just buy a REGO certificate for about 15p completely separate from the purchase of renewable energy.
At the end of the year, a supplier can take their 15p REGO certificates and give them to Ofgem, who will then acknowledge that supplier as ‘100% renewable’.
This means that if a supplier wants to, they could buy all of their energy from coal burning sources, buy some 15p REGOs and then legally market themselves as ‘100% renewable’. As you may have guessed, this is essentially what some suppliers are doing.
But who are the 2 heroes actually producing and selling renewable energy?
Well, one of them is Ecotricity.
Ecotricity have been pioneering genuine renewable energy production in the UK since 1996. They’re Britain’s greenest energy company and their energy is 100% green, coming only from renewable sources. They’re not for dividend and don’t have shareholders to worry about either, which means they’re free to take the money from customers energy bills and use it to build new sources of green energy like windmills, sunmills and — soon — green gasmills. They’re the only green energy company with this unique model. So for every unit of energy you use, they make sure they put a unit of green energy into the grid — meaning every customer helps change the way energy is made and used in Britain.
In the Wild West of the UK’s energy production industry, Ecotricity stand out as a company you can put your trust in. It’s because of this that I’m proud to announce Koin Reward’s very recent partnership with them. Ecotricity have pledged to give Koin Rewards members £50 worth of Koin when they switch to Ecotricity for gas & electricity.
This should be a huge draw factor for anyone supporting charities in the UK, as Koin can be donated to over 20,000 charities through our app. Suffice to say, our partnership with Ecotricity gives consumers a great degree of (renewable) power in supporting sustainability and charitable causes at the same time.
It’s free to join Koin Rewards and there is no membership fee, much like Ecotricity we’re trying to make consumption in the UK a force for good.
Join us today: https://www.koinrewards.io/ and switch to Ecotricity!
Sources:
Read more about Ecotricity’s mission: https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/
Find here a table of the UK’s suppliers: https://www.which.co.uk/news/2019/09/how-green-is-your-energy-tariff/
https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/blog/2017/08/15/green-tariffs-and-regos/
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
