So I’d be careful what you read into the folks…

And for someone who seems to dislike people who “snipe” at other people, you seem to be darn good at it yourself!

There seem to be lots of people who post here with an Ecotricity allegiance, through work or whatever. Not surprising seeing as it’s an Ecotricity blog. But you don’t realise that when you search for ecotricity vs good energy. And many of you, Dale included, dress up in “we’re uncovering bad things” clothes the most snide “vote for EcoT” verbage out! Just for that, I’m voting Good Energy – with my pocket. (However, I do also want to support a company that are not giving money to nuclear, coal etc through a mixed tariff)

Do you spend all your time sniping at people (oh yes, it’s because you care so much about transparency & honesty blah blah blah)?

Anyway guys you were right. I was just trying to find out which supplier might be ‘better’. I’m just as confused as ever.

I just wish I’d found a truly independent review first. I’m not questioning Dale’s ability to write and think independently of Ecotricity! Just that anything ever written by the MD of a company about a rival company is always going to be tinged with a sense of partiality, at least to outsiders like me. C’est la guerre.

Good luck guys. But like I said, I’ve gone with the other side on this one…

There are various links between this site and the actual Ecotricity site so it’s not exactly a secret that Dale founded ecotricity… it’s even on the About Me section. I don’t think you ca ask for more… after all, as you mentioned, this is a personal blog so if he made mention of Ecotricity it would probably come across as either arrogant or that this website’s main purpose is actually to advertise Ecotricity.
Even without all that, I’m not sure exactly how you cn be surprised by his link to Ecotricity when you googled “goodenergy vs ecotricity”, surely you already knew who the ‘dispute’ was between.

I think that Dale’s main point was that although Good Energy are green, they are/were misleading people into believing that they were greener than they are. This is something that needs to be pointed out and it doesn’t matter who by.

IMO if Good Energy intentially mislead potential customers in regards to how green they are, then they’re almost as bad as EdF for their Green Britain campaign… maybe it’s not on the same scale (probably because Good Energy can’t afford to spend £6m on advertising like EdF) but it’s the same premise.

I really don’t get people’s problem with this blog… surely the idea’s not a new one, or even an unrealistic one….
If a company says they do something, they should do it.
I know it’d be naive to think that all companies act this way, but it certainly should be something we aim for.

I’m sure that the regular posters on this blog are all aware that Dale is the MD of ecotricity, it’s not hidden away at all. Also if you read the about me section Dale writes about founding ecotricity.

I dont think the issue here is on rival companies trying to discredit the other. The real issue is the lack of clarity and honesty in businesss that is such a widespread practice these days.

Good Energy’s underachievments compared to their promises in their marketing puts a bad slant on the renewable sector, not this post. And now they have made their counter arguments they have changed their claims to try and make themselves look better.

In my opinion Good Energy (and you being their customer) don’t do a great deal to combat climate change, let me explain.

Good Energy purchase exhisting forms of renewable energy (they do not generate it themselves), because this electricity exhists it would be used somewhere by someone anyway. What happens is that you (a Good Energy customer) are mearly taking renewable electricity from someone else, its been shifted around and the total green mix isn’t increased.

Reducing your own carbon emissions yes but not the emissions of the country as a whole. Net result=no impact on climate change.

Until, that is, I realized that the author of the post was none other than the founder of Ecotricity. Ahem…

I realize this is sort of a personal blog (although it does have a stinking great Ecotricity logo at the *bottom* of the page, neatly tucked away from prying eyes) but it seems pretty low that the founder of one company should be slagging off a rival company in this way. In some ways I don’t know or care if the allegations are true. What’s important to me is that Good Energy and Ecotricity are doing *something*, even if it’s not always quite right.

It seems to me ‘green’ people spend too much time squabbling among themselves rather than looking at the bigger picture. These two companies need to be helping each other get things right, not scoring petty points over each other and focussing on making as much money as possible.

Anyway all this has made up my mind for me. I’m now going to switch to Good Energy, not Ecotricity. One lost customer because of a rather ill-advised blog post…

Back in the day Ecotricity was another word for green electricity – so it was two things, green electricity and the company. Our tariffs have other names – New Energy and New Energy Plus. Ecotricity does still mean green electricity to us, this copy makes the point that this is where green electricity comes from and it shows the kinds of green electricity that exist in the world.

The page you are referring to was last updated about ten years ago – it’s a legacy page.

Take a look instead at the pages that potential customers read, the ones about our build program, our fuel mix, our wind parks, our tariffs and our prices – you’ll find them all crystal clear on this point. Look also at our annual reports, our adverts, the things we tell consumer groups – all crystal clear.

You’ve just dug up a very old page and a piece of copy that’s def not clear but hardly misleads and you’re stretching credibility somewhat if you’re trying to say this equates in any way to what Good Energy have been caught doing – which is to make plain bold 5% public claims (for many years), to win endorsements from consumer groups and to win customers and to justify the £100 a year premium cost – while actually having secret policies that involve massive caveats to that simple very public 5% claim. And they’ve not even retired any ROCs for the last two years. That’s deceit on a grand and deliberate scale. It might even be fraud.

Trying to equate the two is silly are you trying to muddy the waters?

Cheers.

So Merrick if you check the ecotricity fuel mix you’ll find that 53.6% is supplied from ecotricity turbines. 53.6% by its very nature is not a minority.

Or isn’t that abundantly clear?

Ah, so you use ‘Ecotricity’ to mean the company and what it supplies most of the time, but in this context, even though the article doesn’t say so, it means ‘just the electricity generated by Ecotricity, a minority of what it supplies’.

Abundantly clear. Yeah, sure.

What you’re looking at here is an informational page deepish in our web site, many many years old (from when people needed to know this stuff more).

Ecotricity is deep green electricity, our tariffs contain both ecotricity and conventional sources – that’s also abundantly clear. Check our tariff pages for a more contextual source of info.

I think you’re in danger of presenting very selective information, slightly out of context and concluding it’s a deceit on anything like the scale of that of Good Energy’s ROC claim – which is front and centre, bold and clear – and false.

There’s no comparison here.

Cheers.

Having a link further down the page to a different page – the last in a list of 11 options – doesn’t redress that in any meaningful sense. It’s the internet equivalent of insurance policies burying get-out clauses in the small print.

And the page on the first link, and big bold letters, says, ‘They’re all doing it, draping themselves in images of windmills and claiming green credentials – but how green are the UK’s electricity companies really?’. Nice irony there.

Don’t get me wrong, I admire much of what Ecotricity do. And I absolutely believe there is a well-founded and honourable position in the argument that retiring ROCs doesn’t do as much good as flogging them to high-carbon suppliers but immediately putting all the money into new wind turbines.

However, like Good Energy and the vast majority of companies of all kinds, Ecotricity is clearly guilty of misleading people with its publicity material.

I’d say it was beaten by the claim that “Ecotricity is harnessed from natural sources, like the wind, the sun and water, that don’t pollute and don’t contribute to climate change” when most of what Ecotricity supply comes from fossil fuels and nukes.

Anyway, I have this to say:

ecotricity have a 100% tariff. There is a slight premium over the non-100% tariff, but it is smaller than Good Energy’s. (I believe) This is because ecotricity don’t retire ROCs, which is expensive to do. I personally agree that retiring ROCs is less effective than selling the ROCs and using the money to invest in new sources of renewable energy. I don’t know what your view is on ROCs.

I’m not sure whether you want 100% renewables yourself, or whether you only want to buy from companies that offer 100% renewables, but that’s your decision.

If like me you believe £/customer carries more weight than total investment in green energy (or even ROCs for that matter), I’d say you should consider looking into Ecotricity

- And no I don’t work for them!

Maybe you are right, and the change will be insignificant. But I assume if less companies are making blades, and global demand is still the same (or increasing, as it is currently), the market price for windmills and as a result also for green tarrifs will increase.

If you (or anyone else) have any opinions on any other posts on this site, then you’re welcome to post them in the appropriate place. I’d welcome the debate anyway.

ok, we’re on opposite sides of the fence as far as ecotricity’s behaviour goes, but as far as reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, from all UK activities and from all global activities are concerned we’re on the same side.

by the way, I’ve noticed that you now have an “s” on the end of “competitor”, whereas your previous comments don’t have the “s”. I suppose that means you’ve noticed that Good Energy isn’t the only company being criticised here, but the big six too. Actually, Dale doesn’t only have a go at competitors, but the government, the watchdogs, some of the media, NIMBYs, the oil companies and the car companies all seem to be fair game. I think fair enough.

To build the UK’s (the whole UK, not just one particularly supplier) renewable electricity up quickly, it would help if one builds the sources that produce the most renewable power for the least cost. Dale would have us believe that source (at least in the UK) is big, onshore wind. I think I agree with him. Micro-generation’s efficiency (ratio of power produced to cost) is significantly less than big wind. Same goes for offshore wind, for solar electricity etc. Whether it’s taxpayer’s money, or the money of the person paying for the generator, or the supplier’s/customer’s money, it’s still money that could be better spent building big, turbines onshore.

I remember Dale saying somewhere that it’s best to go for the more efficient measures of cutting your emissions before going for solar panels. i.e. insulating your house properly, fitting energy efficient appliances, solar hot water etc. Not particularly exciting, but these will cut your emissions and your spending more than solar electricity will, per pound invested.