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100% renewable elec supplier

Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 8:49 pm
by arsharpe
Has anyone any experience of
http://www.good-energy.co.uk/gyo_smart_gen ?

They only supply 100% renewable leccy.

Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:09 am
by marktime
I don't know about good energy myself but ecotricity make similar claims and give good service.


http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/

MarkTime

Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 5:20 pm
by clnbrtltt
We have a 6kW wind turbine and are with Good Energy and are signed up to their Smart Generation scheme.

We went with them because they only supply renewable energy. They are very helpful whenever we need to contact them. The electricity they supply is a little more expensive than other companies. (14.27p per kw)

They pay us 4.6p for every kW we generate regardless of whether we use it or export it. (ROC's)
We also get 5.75p for every kW we export to the National Grid.
There is also an administration charge of £76.41

Claiming for all this is extremely complicated and has to be done online. The ROC,s are claimed through Ofgem and the export kW's through Good Energy.

As we do this on a yearly basis we are at this moment putting in our claims!

You probably need to look around as we have been told that some other companies give good contracts but we have not made other enquiries.

Good Energy

Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 10:25 pm
by gjsolar
We've been with Good Energy since july 2005. Still seem like the best choice in the UK although others catching up. Confusing claim and crediting procedure though, hopefully improved this year.The payback is now much better since last October at 9p per kwh, previously 4.5p

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 1:10 pm
by ChrisB
clnbrtltt wrote:Claiming for all this is extremely complicated .........


Why does that not surprise me :roll: you would think if they wanted folk to do this they would make it as easy as possible for them.

ChrisB

EV credit for generated power

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:56 pm
by gjsolar
I think the difficulty of claiming for the generated power increases as you get to be a bigger generator.

There are cut off points at less than 6kw (and generating < 5Mwh) per year, then again at 30 kw, and then into the big players at 75kw.But for most domestic installs , particularly for PV panels the 6kw is reasonable.I could appreciate that for wind generators its a bit low.

Then its simply that Good Energy pay 9p /kwh as I read off the generated meter, whether I use it or not.(so if I use it , its value to me becomes 13.5 plus 9p, ie 22.5p per unit)
This is for a grid connected , less than 6kw system (3.2kw)

If not grid connected, good energy still pay (to encourage it !) but at 4.5p per unit, paid yearly.

As mentioned above Good Energy's fixed charges are higher, but they don't hide that.
Until we have a system as in Germany at present which forces the elect suppliers to pay for solar and wind generated kwh at a higher rate than the market kwh, Good Energy still seems to be the best option in the uk for small generators.But any other info gratefully received.

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 9:13 am
by pauleco
Hmm... time to put my Ecotricity hat on ;-) I am not a sales person but I do work for them, so have picked up a little info...

Firstly - Ecotricity has two tariffs:

1. New Energy - Price matched to your regional supplier, 'standard brown' topped up with well above average green energy.
2. New Energy Plus - 100% green with a small premium

Ecotricity's main drive is new build - there is not enough green energy going around, there is high demand from consumers and suppliers (hence the premium on 100% green usually) and not many companies are actively building new renewable sources at the moment.

If you go for 100% green tariff - you may not be doing much to support the generation of new build (demand generation perhaps but not actually generation!) and are using up a finite resource...

Ecotricity prefers for customers to go onto their New Energy tariff because this allows more investment in new build. Eventually we might have enough wind parks to supply all our customers with our own 100% green.

Incidentally - Ecotricity also have a microgen reward scheme currently paying 9p per kWh. In return, you supply Ecotricity with the ROCs awarded to you by OFGEM on an annual basis. Hopefully OFGEM will make the process more user-friendly as more and more people embrace microgeneration at home and work.

Regarding 'Feed-In Tariffs' like Germany - Dale (MD of Ecotricity) has a series of blog posts on this very topic.

Does that help? I have tried not to be too biased ;-)

e2a: typo's!

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 9:50 am
by qdos
I was wondering when you were likely to chip in Paul

It's really tricky trying to be unbiased isn't it. I guess most of us feel good about our own products but then if we didn't we'd not be involved with them.

It's good to have your input and great to see you put it in such an honest manner :)

As I've mentioned before drop me a line as we'd like to chat to you about some things we'd be keen to have your involvement with

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 10:11 am
by pauleco
Hehe - yes - I couldn't resist - I might not know much about EVs but I do know a bit about electricity supply and Ecotricity in particular!

I am not going to poo-poo Good Energy, I would rather people signed up to them than any of the 'Big 6' suppliers, but of course I would rather they signed up to Ecotricity :D

In my travels on the net - I see frequently that the first criticism of EVs on an environmental front by general envirosceptics and/or petrolheads is that electricity isn't green. Well - if you switch your supply it can be, and if charging points are using a green energy supplier - then the argument is pretty much void.

Will be in touch again soon qdos - have been speaking to Dale about your message. There will be no competition from Ecotricity on charging station projects that's for sure. It makes sense for us to work with as many of these projects on the supply side as possible - for the reason I mention above... The project Dale posted on his blog is a concept and not strictly a business plan... if it gets built here in Stroud - it would be a concept demonstration...

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 10:35 am
by qdos
Great news Paul as far as I'm concerned this is all about people working together not against one another.

I'm not the bod who's doing the networks or charging points etc but I do know who is and I think we should all get together as I'm sure we can all do some great things.

It's a few other items I'd like to chat to you and Dale about too not just these. All will be clear when we speak :wink: