The Severn Barrage will cost about £15 Billion to build, will last 100 years and generate enough electricity to power over 4% of the UK - that’s enough for roughly 5 Million homes.

It’s got a lot going for it in that respect.

There are big questions over its impact on the ecology of the Severn Estuary, serious questions. These need balancing I think with the bigger ecological impacts of not doing enough to combat climate change.

But put that all aside for a minute and assume the Barrage is on balance a good thing to build. (more…)

Did an interview with BBC’s Watchdog the other day, they came to visit us here in Stroud. They’ve been on a bit of a crusade against the Big 6 by all accounts - and now they’ve decided to take a look at us Indies - to see if we offer an alternative!

They asked the ‘Green/Brown price’ question… which isn’t easy to answer in a soundbite or two but I did my best! You never know how these things will turn out - it’s all in the edit.

The piece is going out on the show on Monday 24th November, BBC1, 7.30pm.

May have something to say about it here on Tuesday - as may you..?

Watchdog page for the episode can be found here (should be updated following broadcast with video etc)

Wind turbines - love ‘em or hate ‘em, would you jump off the top of one?

A bunch of crazy guys have been doing just that this weekend, from our turbine at Ecotech Swaffham, the world’s first ever legal base jump off a windmill apparently. In fact this is the final round of UK Pro Base championships 2008.

Hot off the virtual press is this video:

Modern parachutes are amazing, just 80m to open and land - on a target!

A bunch of us have abseiled of the turbine at Ecotech before, and we thought that was pretty cool, and ‘out there’… but this is whole nother level.

Even if they do make it look easy. Fair play.

Source video by Hot Under The Collar
Music ‘Carcinogens’ by Sawtooth

The subject of Carbon Offsetting seems to have come up recently as a result of the Greenbird record attempt, and the trip to Oz I didn’t make. I’ve never been a fan of it (offsetting) that’s for sure. (more…)

A better explanation of our recent price rise

You may remember a post I wrote entitled “Why green electricity prices go up when brown prices do” in which I first attempted to explain this seemingly counter-intuitive situation.

I also recently wrote to all of our customers explaining that we needed to follow the recent price rises (of the Big Six) and why. In it I tried to provide a simple explanation of why green electricity prices go up when brown electricity prices do. I received a number of e-mails and letters from customers who had further questions about that and related issues.

I’ve spent the last few nights considering how best to approach this and writing what follows below – it’s a more detailed explanation of why our prices need to follow the market (for now). I hope in the process to better explain the way the electricity market works, how this affects what we do and at the same time cover the majority of questions asked.

Here we go… (more…)

I posted a couple of visions of garages of the future recently.

The first vision was of an internet café style ‘park and surf while you charge’ kind of thing. Looked cool, not a bad first stab, but on further examination - it wasn’t it.

The second vision is an abandoned, moss grown relic. The gist of this vision is that with modern battery ranges of 200 miles + and given that 99.5% of car journeys are less than 100 miles – all we need is some destination charging, in supermarket and public car parks, motorway services, that kind of stuff for long journeys and when we get caught short - and for the most part we’ll be able to plug in at home. We won’t need garages.

This raises the very important question – can the grid take it? (more…)

OFGEM recently released an outline of their proposed new green electricity accreditation scheme … but…

…OFGEM’s idea for regulating green electricity tariffs is to ban them!

Their new rules will ensure customers can’t get real green tariffs in the UK - all they’ll be able to get will be ‘green’ tariffs where trees get planted or carbon gets offset - cuddly, stupid, and quite pointless ‘green’ tariffs.

This is how OFGEM think they’re going to straighten out consumer confusion – by redefining green tariffs as being about anything but investment in new sources of green electricity.
(more…)

It’s one of those things nobody ever speaks out against. But does micro generation have real potential to help us diversify our energy supplies and fight climate change, or is it more like the Emperors new clothes, and nobody wants to be the first to admit it’s a hoax? (more…)

We published this on the Ecotricity website today, but in light of the fact that the Daily Mail didn’t publish my response to this collection of misinformation by Christopher Booker in a timely fashion - I thought I would reconstruct my comments here, where the editorial policy is slightly more balanced. Note to Christopher - feel free to comment here! (more…)

It’s been an interesting week in the world of renewable. As mentioned yesterday, the G published leaked details of the Government ‘Renewable Energy Strategy:

“Revealed: UK’s blueprint for a green revolution”

So - we may actually be entering into a second industrial revolution (more…)