Good Energy
After many months of having our electricity supplied by Ecotricity, it’s time for a change. Ecotricity are a good company with their hearts firmly in the right place, but unfortunately their fuel mix is firmly in the wrong place. After many comments on this very blog plus some research of my own, I have unearthed a rather sad truth. Ecotricity’s green credentials are wilting rather.
Using data from the UK government, it has sadly become clear that Ecotricity’s fuel mix (a report on where they source their power from) isn’t as green as their web site. In fact in 2005 Ecotricity had sourced only 17.4% of their power from renewable sources, 22.3% from coal, 30.3% from natural gas, 24.7% from nuclear and 5.3% from other sources.
To be fair to Ecotricity, they do source most of their power from renewable sources, but then trade their green power generation certificates with other producers (EDF, British Gas, nPower, etc. etc.) so that they can meet their European Union legal requirements for renewables. Yes, British Gas et al are not environmentally friendly at all and their so called Green Tarrifs are actually just renewable certificates for power brought off other companies - which suggests to me that the current British Gas advert with the ‘green’ gas is false advertisement.
So Ecotricity aren’t actually that bad, but the fact they are supporting serious polluters seriously hurts their credentials and has ultimately forced us to rethink.
Enter (stage left) Good Energy. After much discussion and research we have discovered Good Energy who’s fuel mix for the same period as above was 100% renewables. This is very good indeed because this means that in true and honest fashion, our carbon footprint for electricity generation drops to a whopping zero.
Not only this, but I am now spearheading a campaign to get Good Energy to provide the whole of the Green Building our electricity, further helping the Green Building reach it’s zero carbon footprint for electricity generation. Good Energy have a scheme for energy producers and this is exactly what we’re tapping into, ensuring that when our wind turbine is not producing power for the building it is producing power for the country. This will in turn provide the building another new revenue stream which will in turn lower our service charge.
To find out more out electricity suppiers in the UK and how green your electricity company is, take yourself to http://www.electricityinfo.org/suppliers.php
You can find out more about Good Energy at http://www.good-energy.co.uk
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