Change to a Green Supplier

Find out how to change your electricity supplier to a green alternative

Putting photovoltaic solar panels (1) or a solar water heating system (2) on the roof, or a small wind turbine (3) at the bottom of the garden is beyond the finances of many people, and there are also many planning restrictions and unhappy neighbours that can get in the way of those that have the desire to power their home with green electricity. However, there is an alternative. Simply change your electricity supplier to a green alternative. It costs the same or a tiny bit more, and you can make a real difference with just five minutes effort. You should also consider cutting down on your electricity usage (4).

Most electricty suppliers sell electricity derived from fossil fuels - whether with gas powered turbines, coal fired turbines, or even nuclear power. There are alternatives though which enable you to choose a green tariff and be happy in the knowledge that whatever electricity you are using has been generated by renewable sources, or has at least added funding to new renewable energy projects.

Ecotricity wind turbines at Bambers Farm in Lincolnshire. Combined capacity of 4.8MW

Green Energy Suppliers

There are two basic options:
First is a Green Fund. Here you pay a couple of pounds extra each quarter with that extra money invested by the supplier into new alternative energy projects.
The second choice is a Green Power Supply. With this option your electricty again costs a little bit more, but the supplier guarantees that they will generate one unit of green electricity for every unit of electricity you use. This is not exactly the same as having your house powered 100% by wind energy say, but it has the same net effect on the environment and is much more practical.

Good Energy (5) generate 100% renewable electricity from wind, hydro, and solar power. They also run a Home Generation scheme in which you can tie your small scale renewable electricity generating system (home wind turbine, solar panels etc) to the grid and sell back any surplus of electricity.
A similar set of products are offered by Green Energy UK (6) with their Green Energy 100 matching your supply with 100% renewable energy at a small premium over your regional electricity supplier. They also offer shares in the company to their customers (first 100,000) with the aim that 50% of the company will be owned by its customers. Surplus home generated electricity from renewable sources can again be sold back to the supplier.

Ecotricity (7) were rated the greenest electricity supplier in 2004 having spent Ł900 per customer building wind turbines. Their website (8) has a map of their wind turbines on it, as seen on It's Not Easy Being Green (9) over the shoulder of Dick Strawbridge. They own the most visible wind turbine in Europe, located at junction 11 of the M4 motorway and seen by '60 million people a year' (although actually it's probably actually just a few million different people some of whom see it 500 times per year and some just once). Call 08000 326 100 to change your supplier to Ecotricity.

uSwitch (10) make switching to a green tariff easier and provide an excellent comparison service using your home postcode to identify the best value green energy deals available in your location.

Web Link References

(1) http://www.reuk.co.uk/How-Do-PV-Solar-Panels-Work.htm
(2) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Introduction-to-Solar-Water-Heating.htm
(3) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Micro-Wind-Turbines.htm
(4) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Ways-to-Save-Electricity.htm
(5) http://www.good-energy.co.uk/reuk
(6) http://www.greenenergy.uk.com
(7) http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/
(8) http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/projects/index.html
(9) http://www.reuk.co.uk/Its-Not-Easy-Being-Green.htm
(10) http://switchingservice.at/reuk76?DURL=http://www.uswitch.com/Energy/Green-Energy.html?ref=buyat

Article from REUK.co.uk:
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Change-to-a-Green-Supplier.htm
Published: 24th September 2014
Š REUK 2024