Green electricity only tariff

den100man

How is it possible to get a green electricity only tariff when all the electricity flows through the same grid. 

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

It's the same principle as a bank having a big safe.

You pay in the contents of your piggy bank, they count the notes and coins and bung them into the big safe.  When you take your money out, they go to the big safe, count the notes and coins and give the same amount back to you.  They won't be the same notes and coins that you gave them, but it's still 'your' money that you get back.  The bank could theoretically allocate every customer their own deposit box to ensure they received the very same coins and notes back, but it's far simpler to bung them all into one big pot and do the accounting.

However, there are all sorts of schemes that allow the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels (which is A Bad Thing) to be offset by planting trees or whatever (which is A Good Thing) so your so-called green energy is often not quite as green as you might think.  But that's a different issue.  The principle of mixing up all the 'clean, green' electrons with all the 'dirty, non-green' electrons in the same pot is entirely valid.

jbuchanangb

Electricity from all types of generation flows into the grid. It is sold into the grid by the generating companies. Some of the retailers who sell it on to the consumers make a commitment that they will only purchase energy from "green" generating companies, i.e. those who don't burn fossil fuel to generate the energy. (wind, water, solar, nuclear)

So when you buy your electricity from that sort of retailer, you know you are not contributing to the generation of energy by burning fossil fuel.

Some electricity suppliers, claiming to be "green" actually "greenwash" their purchase of energy generated from fossil fuels, by offsetting that purchase by planting trees etc. If you buy electricity from that sort of supplier, it is less clear about the carbon-neutrality of the energy you consume.

[Deleted User]

As an addition to the above, you need to check with your supplier about what they actually mean by "Green" electricity.

Some mean renewable energy sources, some mean zero carbon - the truth can be stretched quite far and the following are often used as "green" energy sources:

1. Nuclear energy - it is zero carbon
2. Burning biomass - often called renewable but is still pumping out CO2 into the atmosphere