We’ve decided to switch our office to using electricity from Ecotricity – so the press turned up yesterday to take some pictures in the back garden of our office.
Reassuringly, it doesn’t cost any more than the standard tariff from a non-green supplier.
We’ve had pictures of Mark and I waving low energy lightbulbs around before when we switched all the bulbs in our office.
Here’s one of the rare pictures from yesterday where we’re not all waving light-bulbs around – only one of us is:
On a more substantive note, the head of ecotricity has a thought-provoking blog at zerocarbonista.com. His view is that the biggest barrier to more wind energy in the UK is the planning system – not lack of feed-in tariffs:
Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.
And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.
I’m loth to see any decisions move towards central government without a very good reason – overall, I’d like to see more local decision-making, not less – but there may be a case for making it a county council decision – like minerals and waste.
I’d also like to see CO2 as an explicit factor in all relevant council and government decisions. Crediting new wind turbine developments against councils’ carbon targets could be another, more local, way to address the issue.
More on the zerocarbonista blog about feed-in tariffs and planning here.
Another green energy supplier used by Lib Dems (including our national office) is Good Energy.
Hi Martin, just wanted to say welcome to Ecotricity, it’s great to have you with us and I hope we can create some change in Winchester together. Regarding my blog on the problems of on shore wind, your comment that maybe planning for wind could go to the County level is spot on. We’ve been advocating exactly that for a while now. I think it makes real sense. Counties are better equipped to deal with the more strategic issues, Districts tend to get swayed too readily by loud NIMBY voices. It’s good to hear from somebody in politics that can see the sense in that and is not afraid of the issue. Cheers.
With the winter months coming in thick and fast I have noticed the difference in how much my energy costs are compared to last year so I think it is definitely a good idea to search for a cheaper electricity supplier.