Comments on: Does ‘Good Energy’ cause new generation to be built?

By: dale

dale — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:48:35 +0000

JCRM, Sorry for the delay in coming back to you on this.

With our New Energy and New Energy Plus tariffs we spend exactly the same amount per customer building new renewables each year - basically as much as we possibly can. It’s averaged out over the last four years at about £460 per customer per year - which is a typical electricity bill.

The reason we describe New Energy as the greenest tariff in the UK is really just because we don’t believe in 100% tariffs. They typically con people on two fronts - one is the belief that they encourage building by increasing demand, which doesn’t happen and the second is people are often told that their carbon footprint goes to zero when they switch to 100%, but they’re not told that someone else’s just went up by the same amount - because 100% tariffs by definition contain green electricity that already exists and was in use by someone else before you.

100% tariffs cost more too and I think the money is wasted.

Both our tariffs contain the same amount of our own green electricity, which increases every year (40% this year, 30% last year) and both have the same spending outcome. We just think New Energy is a better use of money. Topping up with existing green energy from the market to make NE+ 100%, costs about £20 per year.

NE+ is not actually less green than NE in terms of it’s content of new green energy or spending on building, they are equally green in that respect - it just costs £20 a year more for the 100% label. But in both cases £460 each year goes into, not encouraging new build - but doing it. In that respect they are both as green as you can find anywhere in the world.

Hope that helps.

By: JCRM

JCRM — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:08:00 +0000

I chose the new energy plus tariff on the basis that increasing renewable demand would encourage “the market” to invest in construction of new renewable generation (accepting the risk it would also encourage the speculators t start playing around with the prices)

But you call the new energy tariff the greenest.

What proportion less per unit are you able to invest in construction from New Energy Plus compared to New Energy?

By: Damon Hart-Davis

Damon Hart-Davis — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:44:25 +0000

Cross-timezone grids should be very good for shifting (especially) solar power to local peak demand elsewhere. Google for global grid or hypergrid or whatever. It probably even helps a little between the UK and France with our 2GW intertie (and another 1GW to NL and the rest of the European grid on its way).

I’m not convinced that the US has a very good national-level grid capable of shifting much juice around for one reason or another. It’s difficult enough for individual states to get new powerlines put in to shift new renewables, never mind crossing company and state and regulatory boundaries.

Rgds

Damon

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:21:33 +0000

If I get solar electricity from a desert plant in the American south west, and I live on the east coast, I’ll get peak power in the evening won’t I? What effect would a solar plant in Florida have on the same grid? How about one in Mexico, or Texas? Doesn’t the time zone thing have some effect, as we are all attached to the same grid?
I would love a little battery powered two seater carbon fiber commuter car, especially if I could get exchangeable recharged batteries from stations wherever I go! Cool way to extend range!!

By: dale

dale — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:56:15 +0000

@ Peter – No probs, and very understandable - it all started a long time ago now (13 years). Over the years lots of people have looked at finance of solar roofs through mortgage type deals and such like. The basic problem with it is there’s no payback ever (on solar), it makes the economics challenging. It probably needs the 30p a unit, or so, that is paid in Germany, to give it a shout. There are far batter (more effective) ways to spend your money though, I’m going to pull together some numbers for another post on micro generation to explore that. Cheers.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:52:34 +0000

Thanks Dale for the correction. As I discover UnitE before hearing of Ecotricity, I had assumed they were first in the field.
Perhaps they could be persuaded to part finance solar roofs with guaranteed purchase of surplus; a deal with building firms for instance.

By: dale

dale — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:22:07 +0000

@Peter – Actually when Good Energy started as Unit E, they were the third company in the UK to set up and offer green electricity, following Ecotricity and SWEB. Demand existed by then and independent generators were getting independent deals. Good energy joined our bandwagon. Until a few years ago GE have always said they existed to build new renewables. They’ve not built yet, but it’s a mistake to think they’re not big enough to. They have just over 20,000 domestic customers, we have around 35,000 – we’re in the same league in that respect. And GE spends a lot of money retiring ROCs and LECs (tradable bits of paper), in the belief that this stimulates the market (a claim the ASA have banned) – they could spend that on new build instead and build maybe 3MW per year, enough to power about 3,000 homes. But they throw the money away instead. Cheers.

By: Peter Simmons

Peter Simmons — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:06:13 +0000

An addition to the previous:
When Good Energy started, as Unit-e, there was no demand from the others, they had no interest in renewables. Just because they’ve all jumped on the bandwagon, and I agree it just PR, doesn’t mean Good Energy should pack up shop. I doubt they are big enough to move into build, but the big ones certainly could and should.

By: Peter Simmons

Peter Simmons — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:42:32 +0000

Really the answer to the question is in the fact that microgeneration gets premium price paid; therefore, correct me if my logic is faulty, more people will consider investing their time and money in it as there’s a guaranteed ready market.
I think there’s room for both methods of energy supply, Good Energy providing stimulus to renewables generally, and Ecotricity forging ahead with wind and gradually increasing the wind side and it’s own portfolio. The sensitive point is where power has to be bought from the non-green sector to make up the difference, which slightly jars with the whole Ecotricity image, for some.
But if Ecotricity behaved like Good Energy, we’d wait an awful lot longer to get there.

By: paul

paul — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:49:37 +0000

@Damon

Just a heads-up in case you are watching this thread but having subscribed to the RSS feed for the site yet… Dale has just posted up the FITs part 2 post.

Cheers
Paul