Green energy

I have found another campaign to launch! Let’s take on the big energy companies and force them to make green energy affordable...

I got notification from my energy supplier that my monthly direct debit was going to increase dramatically. Despite the fact that we are quite a lot in credit it seems their crystal ball is predicting that we are going to have such massive increases in energy usage over the winter that on top of the credit already collected they need to double the monthly payments! In an attempt to get my heart rate back to normal I decided it was definitely time to do a supplier comparison, and in line with my new greener lifestyle I thought a green supplier would be a good idea.

Looking through green tariffs however did not stabilise my heart at all! There was quite a difference between the cheapest green rate and the cheapest normal rate, which forced me to re-think the situation. I quickly realised that going onto a proper green tariff would be financial suicide for us, and the whole situation frankly made me quite angry. When I started thinking about it, I began questioning the whole reasoning behind green tariffs and I came to the conclusion that they are just a way to squeeze some extra money out of the people who actually care. OK, I know this might just sound like sour grapes, but this is the way I see it:

The energy companies know that things have to change. Not only do we need to slow down the global warming process, but we are quickly running out of a lot of our energy sources – therefore the energy providers have no options. If they don’t make any changes at all either we will all be extinct due to the climate changes or they will simply run out of stuff to burn to make energy – either way the energy companies will be out of business. Investing in renewable energy technology is not just a fancy little side product they do to cater for eco warriors, it is a fundamental part of securing their own survival. So why do I have to pay extra for green tariffs?

At the end of the day we are all getting the same product. Signing up to a green tariff doesn’t mean that the electricity that comes into your house is necessarily from a windmill, they can’t target the distribution like that, it is more a question of overall production, so if for example 5% of a company’s customers sign up for green tariffs, then at least 5% of the energy produced will come from greener sources.
But what would happen if they never got more than 5% of customers signing up to green rates? It certainly wouldn’t mean that they would stop investing in renewable energy and just leave it at 5%, because that would be an extremely bad business strategy. Or what if -by some miracle- all of a sudden 90% of customers signed up to green energy, how would they deliver that?

Obviously the energy companies need extra money to be able to invest in new energy sources, but I think green rates are just a clever trick. A group of corporate people sat around a table discussing how to find the money they need to invest in renewable energy and somebody came up with the idea, ‘hey why don’t we get some of all these green eco friendly people to pay extra, they won’t mind they have the heart in the right place’.

Please don’t get me wrong, if you are actually one of the people who pay extra for green rates, then I applaud you for making that choice, but I would like you to join a campaign saying that all rates should have an element of green, you can't charge some people extra simply because they agree with your business plan. No other business would get away with asking for extra money for delivering something that is just part of their own development strategy - unless they are a charity, and last I checked I didn't see any of the energy suppliers in the Charity register.(Obviously by the time I get round to organising my campaign global warming will probably have finished this planet anyway, but I will keep you posted...)

I am not suggesting that we should all be paying the green rates as they are at the moment, but it is not right that the energy companies are playing on our green conscience to make money, it is not up to a few caring people to pay for the sustainable energy we all need. If they want people to pay more they need to give more, so until they start offering to install solar panels or set up garden windmills when you sign up for green tariffs, I am afraid I am out.