By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
Energy firms have been accused of potentially misleading customers with claims about their ‘green tariffs’.
Some firms that claim their electricity is ‘100 per cent renewable’ do not run any wind farms or even pay for a specific amount of power from green sources to match customer demand.
Instead, they can get away with making this claim by simply paying a small annual fee – of only £1.55 per customer per year – to a firm that does generate renewable energy.
Energy firms have been accused of potentially misleading customers with claims about their ‘green tariffs’
An investigation by Which? found a long list of firms that all claim to sell ‘100 per cent renewable’ electricity tariffs without generating renewable energy themselves or having contracts to buy it direct from generators.
Instead, they rely on what are effectively accountancy measures that involve paying small fees to buy Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates.
The consumer group said: ‘REGO certificates can be purchased by suppliers from renewable energy generators for as little as 30p to 50p per megawatt-hour (MWh).
‘With the average customer using 3.1 MWh of electricity a year, a supplier could buy REGO certificates to match this usage for as little as £1.55 and state their customer’s tariff is 100 per cent renewable.
We are concerned the system allows suppliers who rely exclusively on REGOs to "greenwash" their tariffs while seemingly doing very little to support new renewable electricity generation.’
Which? said the firms at risk of misleading customers include Green Star Energy, Foxglove Energy, Shell Energy, Ovo Energy, Pure Planet, So Energy, Tonik Energy, and Yorkshire Energy.
For example, Green Star Energy claims to source all electricity from renewable generators, but neither owns renewable generation nor has any contracts with renewable generators.
As I have noted before, no matter how much “green energy” these companies sell to gullible customers, the amount of renewable generation remains the same. Wind and solar power both effectively receive preferential access to the market, which allows them to sell of the power they produce.
The idea that each new customer on a green tariff leads to more renewable generation is fraudulent.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
October 5, 2019 at 01:12PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
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