Energy news in general

Robin9

It may already have been discussed before but how can any supplier claim that they are 100% green ?

I am guessing that they say they are putting into the grid from their solar, wind and nuclear than their customers actually consume.

I got certificates today from my supplier that they are 100% green both for electricity and gas.

gpman

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82063802#Comment_82063802

I depends what you mean by "green".

There are essentially 2 different definitions.

If could be green because the supplier has done something or bought a certificate from someone else that has done something green to off-set their own non-green activity.

e.g. they could plant a few trees to offset the dirty electricity they sell that is produced by fossil fuels (coal, gas, etc)

This is sometimes referred to as greenwashing

Or they could only buy green (sometimes called "clean") electricity in the first place.

But what is green electricity? Many include nuclear as a form of clean energy as it emits no emissions in production. But what about heating the river water it uses for cooling purposes. What about treating the after affects of nuclear energy production? Is burying it in the ground surrounded by concrete hoping it will eventually decay naturally in a 1000+ years time or perhaps hoping someone will invent a way to treat the contaminated material in 100 years time when we are not here, really green?

I'm not sure how "green" covering our agricultural land with solar panels is either?

There are various reports that wind turbines are not exactly kind to a lot of wildlife.

As for gas, I am led to believe 100Green are the only UK energy supplier to supply green/clean gas. They only buy biogas made from the breakdown of natural waste (hence why it is expensive). I'm sure someone will argue that is not green either, but it is probably greener than the fossil fuel everyone else buys & sells.

debitcardmayhem

I got certificates today from my supplier that they are 100% green both for electricity and gas.

Well they are green for gas since it's you who burns it 🔥

Scot_39

EOn Next gave up that pretense for non-fixed customers a while back - and even then it was based on iirc the EU REGO method.

And yes its what they pay to add in - and how they source it - not what flows into your meter.

Ive not been aware of the same for gas - as havent had gas for decade plus - but apparently their are equivelentts to REGOs - RGGOs for e.g. biomethane production.

And to be fair as a rule - their not the ones burning it - and collectively adding 22% of the UK's official MTCO2e.

Over twice that of electricity generation - with us paying heavy costs for net zero.

QrizB

I know some folk like to point to the amount of money spent on wind curtailment, so I though it was worth pointing out that (despite Agile prices being negative from late-morning to mid-afternoon today) the amount of wasted wind today has been tiny.

https://wastedwind.energy/2026-07-12

The last 24h has been pretty well balanced between wind, solar, nuclear and (largely overnight) gas.

Yesterday was only £74k for the whole day.

Scot_39

Conveniently filtering out the rest of this year at the top of the page - or last year - to paraphase the old swallow and summer fable

- one "low cost day" does not make a "good energy policy".

https://wastedwind.energy/2026-07-12

"So far in 2026, Britain has wasted £928,349,820 switching off wind turbines and paying gas plants to switch on.

The total cost for all of 2025 was £1,467,023,332."

So with just under 6.5 months gone - already at 63% of last years numbers - as we ramp up to NESO forecast £3.xbn pa.

Or try going back less than a week

https://wastedwind.energy/2026-07-07

"On 7th July, wasted wind cost Britain:
£4,569,777

£941,040 switching off wind turbines

"

It could of course be that NESO - the govts own official NET Zero strategy supervisors are wrong about their £3bn plus curtailment estimates - we will all be pretty glad if they are.

And many of us pretty mad when they are not.

QrizB

"So far in 2026, Britain has wasted £928,349,820 switching off wind turbines and paying gas plants to switch on. The total cost for all of 2025 was £1,467,023,332."

And as we've previously discussed, most of that - probably 75-80% - was the cost of buying additional gas power, not the cost of switching off wind. Your example illustrates this nicely:

On 7th July, wasted wind cost Britain: £4,569,777

£941,040 switching off wind turbines

And then the bit you forgot to quote:

£3,628,737 buying energy elsewhere

So roughly 20% to switch off wind, 80% to buy extra gas.

If we didn't have the wind, we'd still have had to pay for that gas - and for more gas on days when that wind capacity wasn't curtailed.

Martyn1981

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82067238#Comment_82067238

What's also interesting is that I don't recall much or any mention of curtailment payments when they were paid to coal and gas generators to reduce output when local supply exceeded regional demand, or when transmission bottlenecks occurred. It was only when wind generation started to scale and receive them, that they made the news / general conversation.

Similar situation to Cobalt mining in the DRC. Very little concern when used for phone and laptop batteries, and of course the large amount needed for petrol/diesel refining for the last 50-70yrs. But as soon as BEV's arrived, and the FF industry realised they would lose market/revenue, Cobalt for BEV batteries became big news.

With the continued shift to LFP (and even sodium) batts for BEV's, we may soon reach the stage where they require very little Cobalt. Or very little new Cobalt thanks to battery recycling. But the higher power/energy density needs of mobile phones, will mean they (and fuel refining) will continue to need it.

Scot_39

Did they ever get close to the £3.x bn - on ave around £100 per lv grid connection.

Were they paid for a generstion source that is replacing 95% of the others capacity - when it can - but still needs the full capacity of non renewables to back it when it fails to deliver.

Like last Jans lows of sub 0.3GW - 1% of demand at ti e on a cold winters morning - from wind and solar.

At a cost of £100s on our bills and £10s bn in grid investment for many many years.

barker77

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82067719#Comment_82067719

Yeah what we need while the uk is in yet another heat wave is more people pushing for burning fossil fuels