Neon Reef - any views?

QrizB

dbks said:

That page refers to historical electricity supply. i.e. from 01/04/2019 – 31/03/2020. It says since 1 April 2020, all the electricity they supply is 100% renewable.
Please see 'our-story' webpage rather than 'fuel_mix'

Well the new fuel mix is required to be published by 1st October, by law. I guess we'll know in a fortnight or so.

Shedman

QrizB said:

dbks said:

That page refers to historical electricity supply. i.e. from 01/04/2019 – 31/03/2020. It says since 1 April 2020, all the electricity they supply is 100% renewable.
Please see 'our-story' webpage rather than 'fuel_mix'

Well the new fuel mix is required to be published by 1st October, by law. I guess we'll know in a fortnight or so.

Let's hope by1st October we NR customers are still in a position to be bothered about what the fuel mix is......🤞🏼

BUFF

dbks said:

QrizB said:

As BUFF says:

....

From that webpage, Neon Reef's carbon emission intensity is almost twice the national average, 377g/kWh CO2 vs 198g/kWh.

That page refers to historical electricity supply. i.e. from 01/04/2019 – 31/03/2020.
It says since 1 April 2020, all the electricity they supply is 100% renewable.

Please see 'our-story' webpage rather than 'fuel_mix'

They can't say where their electricity comes from though as it's bought on the wholesale market & supplied nationally via the grid - they don't get to say we'll only take electricity from that wind turbine, that hydro etc. That is where the Renewable Energy Guarantee Origin certificates come in to match what they have bought. https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/greenwash/

Patr100

This does not bode well...

One senior industry source said the government was “not interested in bailing out badly run companies” and may leave the sector to experience a “natural response” to the unfolding crisis.
By the end of winter the industry may shrink to as few as 10 energy suppliers, according to analysis from experts at Baringa Partners for the Times, from about 70 suppliers at the start of the year.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/19/majority-of-uk-small-energy-suppliers-could-be-left-to-collapse-this-winter

razord

I do find it odd NR are basically the only supplier offering under 20p per kwh now, and significantly so (at least for the south west region, which tends to be a little higher than most)

Telegraph_Sam

You could always consider a move to the North East (+ a ToU tariff) 😀

dbks

BUFF said:

dbks said:

QrizB said:

As BUFF says:

....

From that webpage, Neon Reef's carbon emission intensity is almost twice the national average, 377g/kWh CO2 vs 198g/kWh.

That page refers to historical electricity supply. i.e. from 01/04/2019 – 31/03/2020.
It says since 1 April 2020, all the electricity they supply is 100% renewable.

Please see 'our-story' webpage rather than 'fuel_mix'

They can't say where their electricity comes from though as it's bought on the wholesale market & supplied nationally via the grid ....

So why did you post yesterday

BUFF said:

Inigo_Montoya said:

I think Neon Reef only supply electric & not gas so that possibly might be a factor in whether they go bust or not - possibly less likely to go bust (?) as they have no exposure to the massive spike in gas prices (just the less massive spike in the electricity price)

72% of Neon Reef's electricity supply is from gas powered generation ...

What better solution than REGOs could you envisage that does not require major, financially non-viable, infrastructure changes and having to await an electrican to turn up to change the wiring to your property before you can switch electricity supplier (or even tariff with some suppliers)?

Electricity is electricity. It makes no difference to the electricity quality how it was generated. What conerns many people is knowing how it was generated in the first place.

If a supplier has REGOs that verify that the total quantity of electricity they sell is matched by electricity generated by renewable means, then that to me is supplying 100% renewable electricity.

If you think there is anything fake about that, then I suggest you send an email to that good energy email address in the link you posted as good energy do exactly the same thing themselves.

 

Telegraph_Sam

 ...

What better solution than REGOs could you envisage that does not require major, financially non-viable, infrastructure changes and having to await an electrican to turn up to change the wiring to your property before you can switch electricity supplier (or even tariff with some suppliers)?

Electricity is electricity. It makes no difference to the electricity quality how it was generated. What conerns many people is knowing how it was generated in the first place.

If a supplier has REGOs that verify that the total quantity of electricity they sell is matched by electricity generated by renewable means, then that to me is supplying 100% renewable electricity.

If you think there is anything fake about that, then I suggest you send an email to that good energy email address in the link you posted as good energy do exactly the same thing themselves.

 

I'm not quite up to speed on this. What is the interpretation of "... matched by ... renewable..."? One could be forgiven for assuming that a matched by b means that the supply was 50% each which is hardly likely.in the circs. And if the supply comes out of the wholesale market pot, how can they make such definitive statements in the first place? There must be answers to these PR questions for those in the know.

QrizB

dbks said:

Electricity is electricity. It makes no difference to the electricity quality how it was generated. What conerns many people is knowing how it was generated in the first place.
If a supplier has REGOs that verify that the total quantity of electricity they sell is matched by electricity generated by renewable means, then that to me is supplying 100% renewable electricity.

The problem is, that isn't really what REGOs do.

If you own a wind turbine or solar farm you generate green electricity. You sell that to someone and they get the power. You also get a REGO that you can sell to someone else. The someone else can then claim that their fossil fuel electricity is clean because they've purchsed REGOs.

If you don't trust the goodenergy link (perhaps you think they're sandal-wearing muesli-munching hippies, or something) try the i paper:

https://inews.co.uk/news/energy-companies-accused-greenwashing-for-buying-20p-certificates-label-fuel-green-839969

Or the Telegraph:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/26/energy-suppliers-accusedof-greenwashing-tariffs-attract-environmentally/

Or the Mail on sunday:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-6992675/The-green-energy-firms-exploiting-cheap-certificates-mean-charge-more.html

BUFF

dbks said:

So why did you post yesterday

BUFF said:

Inigo_Montoya said:

I think Neon Reef only supply electric & not gas so that possibly might be a factor in whether they go bust or not - possibly less likely to go bust (?) as they have no exposure to the massive spike in gas prices (just the less massive spike in the electricity price)

72% of Neon Reef's electricity supply is from gas powered generation ...

What better solution than REGOs could you envisage that does not require major, financially non-viable, infrastructure changes and having to await an electrican to turn up to change the wiring to your property before you can switch electricity supplier (or even tariff with some suppliers)?

Electricity is electricity. It makes no difference to the electricity quality how it was generated. What conerns many people is knowing how it was generated in the first place.

If a supplier has REGOs that verify that the total quantity of electricity they sell is matched by electricity generated by renewable means, then that to me is supplying 100% renewable electricity.

If you think there is anything fake about that, then I suggest you send an email to that good energy email address in the link you posted as good energy do exactly the same thing themselves.

 

Yes, I probably could have phrased it a bit better/more explicitly if I thought that I was going to be called to account on it. 
However, the figures on historic fuel mix are those advertised by NR themselves. As has been mentioned already in the thread we'll find out shortly what their mix was for the last mandated reporting period (unless they go by the 1st of October) & whether they had changed their spots. However, on those figures that we do have they were buying very much (nearly 80%) from non-green sources in preference to renewables (which in the overall market were nearly 40%).

The issue imo is, as QrizB has already mentioned, the ability for a generator to be able to both generate & sell a green energy unit & to additionally split off & resell a matching REGO at a low value which a supplier can then use to match up with their purchased "dirty" energy more cheaply than buying a genuinely green energy unit ( "dirty" energy unit+REGO< cost of a genuine green energy unit).

Having earlier read through it I was perfectly aware that good energy do pretty much exactly the same thing & that there were obvious areas where you could potentially call them out too on just how green they may really be. It was a handy link for an explanation of the mechanism though.