Extracts from the Sept-October 2001 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

5. Green Power- all change

Things are changing fast in the UK green power retail market. The advent of the Climate Change Levy (CCL) means that most energy supply companies are now focusing on making green power deals with businesses and organisations- thereby giving them exemption from the Levy. But most of the domestic consumer schemes are also being honoured- although with changes, in preparation for the Renewables Obligation (RO).

The main issue is that supply companies will want the offer most of the green power they can buy to companies for CCL exemption, and they will also want to be able to claim as much green power as they can against the RO, and with green power being in short supply, that means there is not much available for the domestic consumers. For their part, domestic consumers may not want to pay extra just to help supply companies meet the RO- they will want to support additional green generation, over and above the RO.

So the emerging pattern is that the domestic contracts will in future involve asking participating consumers either to pay for green power that is additional to that counted towards the companies RO, or to pay into a eco-fund to support new generation schemes outside the RO. But there are some hybrid schemes combining both elements, and some that have not bothered about additionality. For example, Eastern Energy evidently buy more green power than they actually use for the two schemes. Indeed they are actually managing to increase their purchase of renewable energy capacity. They are also looking towards producing more capacity of their own (via TXU Energy) mainly investing in wind turbines. So, both of their existing green power schemes will be additional to the Renewables Obligation. By contrast Yorkshire Electricity is continuing with its domestic supply scheme, but for the moment it seems, until the RO is in place, without additionality, and without accreditation by the Energy Saving Trust. But no doubt they, and their new owners npower/innogy, will be hunting for more green power to offer on all their schemes, so then there may be some that can be additional.

Interestingly, in this context, npower has just launched its own new scheme, backed by Greenpeace, called ‘Juice’, which, from around 2003, will use power from npowers proposed offshore windfarm at North Hoyle 7km off the North Wales coast. Until then, Juice supplies will come from existing on-shore wind sources and a small hydro plant in Snowdonia. Juice will be a ‘zero premium’ scheme, and so may avoid problems about additionality/double charging, although, if it goes ahead, the £250m offshore project would of course be part funded from DTI grant money - and will count against the RO. Not everyone is happy with the latter aspect, but it is presumably how they’ve got the price down, even given the offshore sourcing. Matthew Thomas, Juice project leader for npower, said: "We believe Juice will help kick-start the renewable energy revolution in the UK. Consumers can now invest in the future of clean energy, and show their support for wind power, without paying more".

Contact Juice on 0800 316 2610 or at www.npower.com/Juice or www.greenpeace.org.uk/cleanenergy.htm

Full details of all the green power schemes, regularly updated, can be found on the new chart produced by Lee Potiphar from EERU on the NATTA Bulletin page on the EERU web site http://www-tec.open.ac.uk/eeru