We have signed up to Ecotricity today as they are (currently) the same price as EDF my current supplier.

The energy is 100% green and around half of the bill is ploughed back into further expanding the companies means to generate more renewable energy and expand the EV charging network. In addition, being an Ecotricity customer means you will continue get a FREE electric highway card beyond the first twelve months.

An initiative worth supporting and indeed makes driving an EV even more green!

I looked into Ecotricity yesterday as I wanted to support their electric highway efforts. In the past I’ve been put off by the fact their electricity wasn’t all from renewable sources. So a few years ago, I went for Good Energy (http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/) – which has been 100% renewable for years.

Now that Ecotricity have managed 100% renewable now too, I figured it was worth giving then a look. Having checked the costs, though, I’m better off with Good energy as at 14.39p per KW their charges are lower than Ecotricity (this comparison still stacks up when I factor in the different standing charges). They also support economy 7 tariff as well. I also can’t fault their customer service for electricity provision as well as paying my feed-in tariff from my PV panels.

So, I’ll stick with Good Energy for now, but in my opinion, these are the 2 best companies for green electricity.

I’m with GoodEnergy and I strongly recommend them. They have been 100% renewable from the start (15 years ago), invest massively in hundreds of community energy projects, have industry leading support for home generation, pioneered FIT with their own system before the government one and the same for RHI with their ‘HotROC’s. But most importantly, the entire company ethos is completely different from any other company I’ve dealt with. Making money is almost a side-effect and their real passion is renewable energy, community owned energy, engaging people in the energy generation and consumption process and genuinely wanting to change the world 🙂 They are founding members of Ethex and the Social Stock Exchange, they give talks and lectures around the country, they work with and lobby government, they sponsor phd students and all sorts. The CEO and founder (Juliet Davenport) was awarded an OBE for all her work and efforts in renewable energy and her passion propagates throughout the company.

Currently, to celebrate 100,000 customers (35,000 electricity tariff customers, 55,000 generating/FIT tariff customers and 10,000 gas customers – notice how the majority are customers generating their own electricity) they are giving £50 off your first bill if you switch via a friend referral. Let me know if you want to switch and I’ll give you my details as a referrer 🙂 I think I get a £50 investment in a wind or solar project as my part of the referral.

In spring 2014 they are trialling smart meters with a specific view to fully support generating customers and EV customers and they are also currently investigating other ways to support EV customers (e.g. free installs of Eco7 meters) although nothing’s decided yet.

Oh, and in the past 4 years they’ve been top of the Which customer satisfaction survey 3 times with 5 stars for both customer service and energy saving advice 🙂

Waitrose are doing offers if you join Ecotricity, e.g. £50 voucher.

With british gas’s ‘Clear and Simple’ tariff I’d have got 6.56p/kWh evening and 16.79p/kWh day rate so although the GoodEnergy Eco7 tariff has a higher evening rate of 7.96p/kWh which would suggest a 1.4p/kWh ‘renewable’ premium their daytime rate of 15.31p/kWh means I actually save on the normal house electricity bill and that renewable premium is somewhat reduced (rates are for the West Midlands).

A full charge actually takes, I believe, about 25kWh because charging is not 100% efficient so a theoretical full charge with GoodEnergy would be £1.99 while with british gas it would be £1.64 (a difference of 35p).

My house uses about 9Kwh and almost all of that is during the morning or evening – lights, tv, cooking etc. so with GoodEnergy the cost would be £1.37 while with british gas it is £1.51 – a difference of 14p (ignoring the differences in standing charge).

In reality I only charge my car about 70% per day and only 5 days a week so in an average week I’d pay 98p less with GoodEnergy on my house electricity use and £1.22 more on charging the car. Overall, therefore, my weekly renewable premium is actually 24p (about £12.50 a year) or, if you prefer, 4.8p/charge.

Considering for a moment the standing charge, I believe GoodEnergy charge a bit more than BG so that prob. costs me another £20/year or so.

Obviously if you have a discount rate or a fixed rate you will receive benefits that might not be financial and the numbers above are just comparing the basic British Gas tariff and use estimated average figures for house consumption (based on my recent bills) etc. so personal circumstances will be different. But for me, £12.50 a year extra to support 100% renewable electricity is worth it 🙂