Rekindled

This weekend I finally switched to a green electricity supplier.  That means I will be buying electricity from renewable sources like windmills.  The the three biggest and best known of these companies are Ecotricity, Good Energy and Green Energy.  There are also two newer companies called LoCO2 and OVO.  The Green Energy Marketplace has a really handy guide to green energy tariffs, and has even ranked them from 1 -5 stars (although there aren’t currently any 5 star rated suppliers).

I didn’t even consider signing up to a so-called green tariff with one of the mainstream energy suppliers.  They are required by law to buy a certain amount of energy from renewable sources, so in effect their green tariffs are charging you extra for something they would have to do anyway.  It may mean that you are getting more renewable energy, but it also means that everyone else (on a standard tariff) is getting less.  It certainly isn’t going to make any difference in the long term.

So which of the other green electricity tariffs is best?  It’s not a clear cut decision.  There are two main types: one that buys 100% green energy from the grid and sells it to you, and one that buys a mix of green and brown but invests in new sources of renewable energy.  I think both types make a valid contribution.  Companies that buy green energy from the grid encourage people to set up their own renewable energy projects.  This is a slower, more organic kind of growth in renewable energy.  However, I think that direct investment in new wind farms, for example, is going to make more of an impact more quickly.

In the end I decided to go with Ecotricity, on their slightly more expensive 100% renewable tariff.  They fall into the second category, and use all the money you spend on your energy bills to build new sources of renewable electricity, so each year they are using a bit more green and a bit less brown electricity.  Over the past 5 years that is an average of £450 per customer per year.  Their closest rival is Scottish Power, who invested a measly £27.65 per customer!  I’m not quite sure what happens to the money that Green Energy and Good Energy make because they didn’t invest anything at all.  Admittedly these stats do come from Ecotricity, but I cannot find any information on the Green Energy or Good Energy websites to contradict this.

PS. If you are thinking of switching to a green energy supplier and you decide to go with Ecotricity too, you can get 2 years’ free digital subscription to the Ecologist.

Do you know how energy intensive food production is? Conventional agriculture is completely reliant on fossil fuels, especially oil. However, as world oil supplies are depleted, this method of producing food will not be possible any more.

The BBC has produced a very interesting programme about this problem, following one farmer trying to prepare her farm for the future:

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.

 You can view A Farm for the Future using the BBC iPlayer (available until 17th March).

Interestingly, low energy, organic farming was the only way of farming up until about 50 years ago.