How Green is your Electricity

At Get-Eco we get asked about our utility suppliers and which "green tariff" we recommend. The shocking answer is we don't. We use an affordable tariff and switch suppliers every few years to keep our costs down.

Many are surprised by this, but we have sound reasoning for this policy. You see, electricity is a funny thing. In the UK the national grid is the same for all of us. Lots of electricity producers generate their power and it all goes into the grid for us to use in our homes and work places. There are no batteries, no electricity is stored. It's a careful balancing act ensuring enough power is generated to meet demands minute by minute.

The actual mix of our power is reported in the imaginatively named Digest of UK Energy Statistics, DUKES for short. For 2010-11 DUKES tells us 70% of our electricity came from fossil fuel, that's coal, oil and gas. 21% came from nuclear power and 9% from renewables. For renewables this includes hydro electric, on shore and off shore wind, biomass (wood waste), bio fuel (including waste and gassification of waste) and PV or photovoltaic. The report also tells us, quite frightenly that 61% of all power generated is lost in distribution.

What of all of these green suppliers? Well, they do a great job improving our energy mix reducing our reliance on fossil fuel. However, there is simply an accounting function for each supplier. Electric companies can either generate their own power or buy power on the wholesale market. Whatever they do their books must balance, if they sell 100MW of power and generate 50MW, they have to buy in 50MW; simple.

Now, for all of you on "green" tariffs this may come as a shock. Everyone has the same power mix, irrespective of supplier, tariff or location in the UK.

Our reasoning is further supported by the Government calculation and assessment procedures. For Energy Performance Certificates we have a standard carbon footprint of 517gCO2 per kW at source, we can't change this by supplier, why? Because we all use the same electricity. In Code for Sustainable Homes, the same is true where low and zero carbon technologies are assessed, green tariffs are not included, why? Because we all use the same electricity.

So to answer the question how green is your electricity? The same as yours, and not very green at that!