Green Electricity...erm....

[domtyler]

If you're really determined to throw good money away why not just send it to me? I will promise to spend it on improving the environment.

 

[hubgearfreak]

Here's an alternative idea- how about a supplier that genuinely only got all its electricity from renewable sources? i.e. no reliance on the rest of the grid to stablilise the supply, so if the wind is blowing you get power, if not you get the candles out! Perhaps one or two of you pro-renewable people might like to set one up and see how much support there really is!

tealights are out ready - you'd need to bear in mind that without hydro dinorwig that supplies smoothing power to the grid at peak demand, we'd all occasionally be sat in the dark. but then dinorwig is charged up overnight by nuclear and coal anyhow

i get your point, but my belief is that we could reduce our demand by 40% easily, negating the need for new nuclear and requiring less fossil fuels being burnt

how about an energy company that provides only 60% of the average household electricity to each home, and when it's gone, it's gone? so if you're careless you run out in 6 months, if you're careful you could sell your excess to those that aren't, for whatever the market would stand.

 

[hubgearfreak]

So you're still buying the same amount of green power into the network.

I'd be interested to see where these lulls are with hydro-electric.

yes, but mjones point still stands, that we need a mix of coal & gas along with renewables.

the lulls you talk of, could maybe mean weeks of no electricity after a drought

 

[Jaded]

i get your point, but my belief is that we could reduce our demand by 40% easily, negating the need for new nuclear and requiring less fossil fuels being burnt

Indeed, given that our average household usage is double what it was 25 year ago.

Trouble is, no one makes any money or any headlines or any right-on green brownie points out of reduced consumption.

 

[Arch]

Having had a night's sleep I can confirm that my last post was indeed wibble.

So who isn't getting a plasma tv then? The old ones use less electricity.

I'm sticking to my old telly until it dies (or they switch off my analogue). As I'm quite happy to do without colour, I can't imagine I'll be too fussed about the up to the minute stuff when I do have to get a new one, unless up to the minute at that stage happens to use less power and save me money on bills.

 

[User482]

Ecotricity & Good energy are the only two green tarrifs worthy of the name:

Ecotricity invest all of their profit into building new wind turbines.
Good energy claim 100% supply from renewable sources.

I've checked out most of the leading "green" tarrifs and many of them barely meet the legal minimum for renewable supply. They're not worth the paper they're written on in my opinion. Also beware of Scottish & Southern - their "green" energy comes from hydro that was installed 40 years ago, when it was a nationalised indistry!

I switched from NPower Juice to Ecotricity and the cost was virtually identical.

 

[User482]

Here's an alternative idea- how about a supplier that genuinely only got all its electricity from renewable sources? i.e. no reliance on the rest of the grid to stablilise the supply, so if the wind is blowing you get power, if not you get the candles out! Perhaps one or two of you pro-renewable people might like to set one up and see how much support there really is!

What a load of nonsense. Any form of generation relies on other forms as you well know. How about a supplier that genuinely gets all its power from nuclear? Would you go for that?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/19/britishenergygroupbusiness.nuclearpower

 

[hubgearfreak]

What's the point of making that statement? To put down renewable energy? That doesn't wash.

It needs to be supported. The more people buy into it the more will be invested into it. I'd be interested to know whether there is enough 24 hour green supply to meet the current need.

i don't put down renewables, but the fact is that on a cold dark but not windy night, after coronation street when 12million simultaniously put on their kettle then the hydroelectric dams would empty in a few minutes - indeed dinorwig does do just that to even out the peak. but we really need something ticking over, producing reliablly a fair chunk of our demand

so, there needs to be a mix...because on a windy night, or a wet month it'd be silly to let the free energy go to waste, and harnessing it would mean we need less coal and gas

but there needs to be efficiency. for example in my house, with every light on, there's c.160watts of lights. in my brothers house, all the lights add up to 2000w.

when people buy a new appliance, style & cost are more important than efficiency

the government charge VAT on loft insulation.

with some tough politicking, but no significant loss in comfort, the UK electricity use could come 20% or 40% in 5 years, negating the need for new nuclear.

with solar thermal hot water, CHP in district power stations, further advances in fridges, washing machines in the long term the demand would go lots lower.

coupled with more renewables and better efficiency at the point of production, huge amounts of CO2 could be saved.

 

[User482]

Sorry to be thick, but what's wrong with this?

Thanks for the other info, BTW.

Because they're doing absolutely nothing to increase the supply of renewables, and are charging you extra for rebranding something that was paid for by the public anyway, that they were lucky enough to inherit when generation was sold-off. They are also sneaky b*ggers - see this:

http://www.turnuptheheat.org/?page_id=20

 

[User482]

Are Goodenergy?

Yes - they invest in renewables, and importantly they "retire" Renewables Obligation Certificates, which prevents them being sold on to other energy companies, which increases their value and so provides an incentive to all energy companies to generate more from renewables. As far as I know, they're the only company that retires ROCs.

 

[GaryA]

We are with ecotricity...they did a free subscription to the ecologist magazine early last year...an offer which is over now, so now i might look at goodenergy
BTW it is personal integrity, not because of a belief it will make any difference to civilisations inevitable demise...because it wont...

 

[Danny]

Spurred on by the various posts this thread I have found that there is site called Green Electricity Marketplace which compares the various "green" tariffs on offer. They are endorsed by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace so are presumably reasonably trustworthy.

I was chastened to discover that our Npower Juice tariff is one of the least green on the list - and is more expensive than some of the better green suppliers.

We will be changing at once - or at least once I have had time to persuade with my other half!

 

[jonesy]

What a load of nonsense. Any form of generation relies on other forms as you well know. How about a supplier that genuinely gets all its power from nuclear? Would you go for that?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/19/britishenergygroupbusiness.nuclearpower

Sense of humour failure User482. My comment was pretty obviously a flippant response to hubgearfreak's equally obviously flippant suggestion. HGF got the point, so no need to state the obvious. Yes I do know that all suppliers rely on each other for a stable grid, that was the whole point; at present you couldn't get a stable supply that was 100% renewable, and you know that.

FWIW, I buy my electricity from Good Energy. That's because I want to see renewables developed to their full potential, even though I have no in principle objection to nuclear power as part of the mix. Unlike nuclear technology, most renewables are at an early stage in development and need extra support to be brought to the stage where they can be assessed objectively against nuclear and fossil fuels. To my mind, this justifies support by individual consumers.

 

[jonesy]

i don't put down renewables, but the fact is that on a cold dark but not windy night, after coronation street when 12million simultaniously put on their kettle then the hydroelectric dams would empty in a few minutes - indeed dinorwig does do just that to even out the peak. but we really need something ticking over, producing reliablly a fair chunk of our demand

so, there needs to be a mix...because on a windy night, or a wet month it'd be silly to let the free energy go to waste, and harnessing it would mean we need less coal and gas

This is why we need to develop new, cost effective, methods for storing energy. This would allow wind turbines and wave systems to produce useful power over a wider range of wind speeds; all their fluctuating output being stored to be released in line with demand. As I mentioned in a topic on Soapbox, there are promising developments in flywheels, flow batteries, electrolysis, compressed air and no doubt there are others.

There are also useful demand-side storage systems that could be used to help match demand to supply. But that is an awful lot of new technologies that need to be developed and commercialised, not to mention the significant changes that will be needed to the grid to cater for more distributed generation. And we still have to develop the technologies needed to generate the power from waves, tidal currents etc, all of which are promising but still as yet not ready for commercial use.

but there needs to be efficiency. for example in my house, with every light on, there's c.160watts of lights. in my brothers house, all the lights add up to 2000w.

when people buy a new appliance, style & cost are more important than efficiency

the government charge VAT on loft insulation.

with some tough politicking, but no significant loss in comfort, the UK electricity use could come 20% or 40% in 5 years, negating the need for new nuclear.

There are two issues here.

First- how sure can you be that such a huge saving can be made so quickly, given that most people live in relatively poorly insulated houses that can only be improved so far, and much of that improvement is going to be taken as increased comfort rather than actual energy saved? Last year I visited a demo house at the Building Research Establishment. They claimed it needed no additional heating to keep it comfortable. That shows what is possible, but that requires completely new build.

Second- even if these savings were made, why does it follow we don't need nuclear? One could equally argue that it would negate the need for fossil fuel generation, with nuclear providing the remainder without carbon emissions.

with solar thermal hot water, CHP in district power stations, further advances in fridges, washing machines in the long term the demand would go lots lower.

coupled with more renewables and better efficiency at the point of production, huge amounts of CO2 could be saved.

And again, coupled with nuclear as well, even more CO2 could be saved. (Not forgetting that CO2 isn't the only issue here.)

 

[hubgearfreak]

@ mjones

for those of you concerned about these things, there are better things you can do than switch supplier.

switching supplier is just greenwash (like whitewash, but concerned with environmental issues) if you think it makes you green, you're wrong. it's nice if the grid has renewables, because it would be a shame to not harvest them, but it also needs solid, reliable fossil fuel or nuclear power to ensure security of supply.

whether we need nuclear in this mix is obviously a contentious issue..i certainly don't think that they're needed, but i'm clearly not going to persuade anyone who thinks they are otherwise, or vice-versa. whether those that think they are needed would be happy to have them in their locality i doubt.

now for the things you can do to make a difference

have you got 8-10 inches of loft insulation?

do you have cavity walls - are they insulated?

if you don't, do you have 10mm foam wallpaper?

do you have CFLs throughout?

do you switch the Tv & etc. off at the wall socket every night?

do you have double glazing, or draught excluders, or neither?

do you boil only the water you need for the cup(s) of tea you're making?

is the heating such that you're in a t-shirt or have you got a jumper on now?

is your boiler new/newish, did you ask about its efficiency.?
if it's old, like 20years or so, a new one could pay back for itself in a few years.

if you have a hotwater tank, is it well insulated?

did you make certain that your fridge and washing machine are 'a' rated?
would the rating be important when you buy a new one?

if you're answering no to any of these, you could help.
if you're answering no to many of these, you could half your bills and CO2