Tom

Hope you’re well.

When exactly does your eco-supercar record attempt take place?

I may know of some media interest…

Best, Nick

“Mr Vince, who employs 164 people, usually pays himself about £70,000 a year from Ecotricity’s main holding company, a modest sum by the standards of successful UK entrepreneurs. Records at Companies House show he has not paid himself dividends in recent years.”

What I found interesting is that you have not paid yourself any dividends recently, only the salary. Is that an ethical decision? My (limited) understanding of these matters is that it is not the most “tax-efficient”, and that paying yourself a combination of salary and dividends would reduce the total amount of income tax and national insurance you pay to hmrc. I suppose you have decided not to take that route?

Regards
Jeff

Hmmm – well there *is* the old signal-to-noise ratio to consider with any kind of comment system, but there is also the editorial policy of ’say what you like but be nice to each other’… so even though I am all up for serious problem solving being the main focus of the blog – there’s always going to be some chit chat.

However – I have set up a contact form (and created lots more work for myself and Dale in the process )

We have also been talking about setting up some kind of forum system where users can create and respond to topics themselves… I am just ironing out the thinking behind that with Dale and others.

I think if there is anywhere suitable for backslapping – then this ‘about me’ section is probably the best place for it.

I reckon I will probably need to run a survey on here to get some valuable feedback from you all – so keep your eyes peeled for that soon…

I may also start closing off older posts for comments after a period of time so that we just need to focus on responding to comments for a handful of posts – rather than for hundreds as time goes by…

Thanks for sticking around during the quiet bit though all of you.

Cheers
Paul

But I would love to see a broader, more general, though obviously still Renewable Energy focused, forum.
That way people can still discuss/argue the merits of “greener” ways of life, while having access to the experience of someone like Dale.

The threads don’t appear to get answered very quickly these days so why quibble?

Well done Dale, I thought this thread is “about you”

Graham

Paul, perhaps you could set up a couple of threads entitled “Well done Dale/ecotricity” and “I’ve got this great idea you’ll be interested in…..” for those people who want to congratulate or share their theories/ business opportunities., to leave the other threads uncluttered and focussed on the debate in hand.

Thank you.

Congratulations on winning your appeal for a wind monitoring mast at Berkeley Vale.

I hope the site is suitable for wind turbines and you install them soon

Derek

I found this quite uplifting to watch and thought I’d share it with you as I think it has some incredible ideas within it….

Zaragoza Ecociudad to see my a quick video

I have just moved my question so that you may see it here.

Over the years I have followed your career with much interest. Your latest venture, the Nemises electric car project is something I had attempted back in 2006 under the “Triumph” brand name. The project was itself called “Triumph for the Environment” but on account of BMW owning the marque the venture was a non-starter.

There are many similarities in the projects, for example I attempted to interest Sir Richard Branson in the Electric Car World Land Speed Record….and I remember advocating a throaty sports car noise simulation at a Bertone Design Studio meeting in Turin. They obviously thought I was crackers at the time however I learnt recently that the US is to enforce electric car makers to create noise for pedestrians.

Good luck with this project anyway, but what I am contacting you about is compressed air energy /cavern batteries, and the potential for them to be used in football stadiums under the field of play.

Have you heard of small scale cavern batteries being used with off-peak wind energy? Do you think there is a market for it?

Would love to know.

Happy New Year to you and yours

There’s a contact form here you can fill in with your details and any more info and it well get to Dale…

Paul

Cheers.

I’m interested to hear you’re planning the next Bluebird Electric, def be happy to talk

I’ll ask Paul (our blog manager) to drop you a line to set something up.

Cheers.

Just heard about your plans to attempt to break my UK Electric Car Land Speed Record! Excellent news well done and best of luck! We are planning the next Bluebird Electric Car as well!

Would like to discuss further!
Thanks
Don Wales

As an employee at Ecotricity, I’d also like to mention just a couple of things if I may?

From the impression I am getting from reading this discussion it seems that you are just trying to start an argument. You have posted all of your gripes and issues here, in public, and so Paul has responded to them – quite rightly.

You cannot criticise Paul for responding to your post (and I believe: “and replying in public like this your point is?” is a criticism) as that’s the whole idea of a blog.

From what I’ve read it seems that we have helped you very much and gone out of our way to try and resolve your problems (you’ve even had the big man at the top look through your account!)- and you should be grateful for help, not fighting against it.

If you don’t want a public response to your ‘questions’ (now what seems to be an argument) then I strongly recommend you do not post them here.

I am pleased we have now arranged a suitable arrangement for you and I hope you feel you are treated better at your new supplier, and have no problems with them.

I wish you a happy Christmas

HJ

Would you like me to remove this discussion?

Paul

Paul here, blog manager, but I also help people out when I can.

Firstly – this is not an Ecotricity support blog – as I am sure you are aware, so I would suggest that in the first instance you contact normal channels for support (see below), as I cannot guarantee that any customer service issue will be resolved from commenting on this blog.

I can understand, however, why some disgruntled customers (not many of ours you will notice) choose to shout about their case in a public place (such as a blog), but in your case, Ecotricity have done everything we can and more. I don’t believe it is in your best interests to continue this discussion in public – even if it does make us look more sympathetic to other readers.

Secondly – you *have* made threats and they have been documented. But let’s move on from that, seeing as Dale actually responded above 6 months ago.

You are now no longer an Ecotricity customer. We will not be changing your meter. All that remains is for you to continue to pay the debt that you have agreed to pay, with the terms you proposed.

You have the contact details of both our customer services team and customer champion team (and you have used them to great effect in the past), but I have asked them to contact you now to discuss what can be done about your apparent current difficulty in continuing your payment plan.

Best regards
Paul Sergeant – Online Community Manager

This looks like a threat to me… manipulative behaviour at the very least.

I quote ” or the threats you’ve been making. ”

I have made no threats to you or anybody else at Ecotricity.

The only threats that have been made have come from Ecotricity representatives to me. I.e forcing entry to my rented accommodation to put in a meter and/or giving up the contract in question to bailiffs so they can remove property from my accommodation to cover your costs.

How has been making threats???

I will always remember this mistake and an currently looking for ways to deal with this. I am glad to see you have put the tariffs in plain site as when I enquired the were obscured to say the least.

I am using your SUBMIT function/button to add this text written by me too your site. It implies nothing else.

Just switching our business over to Ecotricity. Would switch home over but we are already off grid.

While talking to your sales guy he mentioned that you were about to launch a ‘green gas’ product.

Just a thought (which you may well already have had yourselves!) but as supermarkets throw away a huge amount of ‘waste’ food which we as memebrs of the public cannot access (to recycle as chicken food, pig food etc) due to pretty stupid applications of health and safety regulations, can Ecotricity not strike some sort of deal with Somerfield, Sainsbury’s etc to take the ‘waste’ food from them and bung it into the digesters that you will use to create the ‘green gas’??

Keep up the good work.

Nathan

We may be “birds of a feather” – allthough I cannot claim to be an “inventor” – I have spent everything ,the last twenty years or so , in the pursuit of a wind-energy system that can pay for ITSELF !!
If you email bert dot windon @ gmail dot com I can show you and tell of the very successful outcome of my hike.
Best wishes
G. Gilbert Vaughan

I just came across the blog today and I’m really loving it! The concept of Ecotricity just goes to show us that our friends across the pond are miles ahead of us in America.

Wanted to drop you a line about something we’re doing Stateside, that we think you’d enjoy. I work with The League of Young Voters Education Fund and we just published a video about the hypocrisy of clean coal over at ShutUpWindmill.com.

Figured you might like the video and campaign!

Best,
Steve Romain