Earth Hour

[chubbygristle]

those dastardly thrupp lake filling didcot fly ash dumping eco-terror scoundrels, the all polluting and general scum of the earth misanthropists - npower,

Gosh, and how would you describe folk you don't like

well... I have had 'dealings' with them in the past - once they sent me a bill for something i'd already paid - i was told it was a one in a million chance hiccup with their billing system. The following month, same thing happened with a similar response. A couple of months down the line I get a letter from a company 'collections direct' going on about collecting this sum of money that I was now seriously behind paying. On a closer examination of this letter I noticed the registered address was suspiciously the same as npower - and low and behold, it was npower masquerading as a 3rd party debt collecting service - with no mention of npower at all in the letter with the sole purpose of intimidating their customers into paying their bills (that I guess most have already paid!).

Ecotricity for the win! I'm moving house again soon and the new place is with npower (arghhh!!!!!) so will have to deal with this cohort of vacuous wastes of protoplasm once more as I wait for the switch back over to Ecotricity to complete. Oh I hate them I hate them I hate them......


they're also using the 1997 protection from harassment act against Thrupp Lake protesters... oh don't even get me started on that one....

[Adam1]

Generally, I think green tariffs are greenwash, Ecotricity excepted, as they are focusing on building new capacity to a much greater extent than other providers. However, I found Ecotricity to be pretty hopeless at customer service. They refused to agree a monthly direct debit amount that even came close to reflecting our actual usage. In the end, I had to go back to paying each bill manually. Then, even when I paid the bill the day it arrived, supposedly, about 10 days before the bill was due, they would always send me a red letter about three days later. I went through this rigmarole for a while before switching away from them. Ecotricity should stick to building windturbines and outsource their energy retailing, as they don't do it well. When we left Ecotricity, they called to ask why and on explaining to them, the woman on the phone said "Ah yes, I've heard this story from a number of our customer" - or words to that effect.

We invested some money in Triodos to replace the money that Ecotricity were investing on our behalf and switched to a provider that offers the best value for money and customer service (according to Which? magazine). Once we get to our new place and we have micro-renewables installed, we'll probably go for Good Energy, as they currently offer the best price on kWhs generated, 10p per kWh (whether it is consumed on the premises or exported to the grid).

For the other green tariff providers, their tariffs are not resulting in any significant, additional renewable capacity: this even applies to Good Energy. And, on a green tariff, the electricity you consume still comes from the grid, so even if you accept the idea that you are consuming notionally 100% renewable electricity, that is at the expense of other consumers who must be consuming a higher proportion of fossil fuel based electricity. In addition to this, there is the tendency of some green tariff consumers to think that it is ok to use as much electricity as they wish because it is "zero emissions". Green tariffs are not part of the solution, they are a distraction from the most important issues, like banning plastic bags (not that I think we can just use plastic bags thoughtlessly).

Our role as energy consumers is to reduce our usage. It's the generators' role, aided by government, to move to renewables.

[chubbygristle]

Our role as energy consumers is to reduce our usage. It's the generators' role, aided by government, to move to renewables.

I've not had any problems with Ecotricity at all to be fair to them so will be switching back across to them again in the new place. But yes, I couldn't agree more....

I know a number of people who *do* think that because they are now on a 'green' tarrif they can use as much as they like with no impact because it's renewable.


it's the same argument that people with fancy new 'energy efficient cars' seem to have. - "hey I am all green now cause my car does 65 mpg!" great but you're still doing a 35 mile daily commute in it which kind of misses the point. a 65 mpg car doing 175 miles a week getting you to work and back plus a 6 mile round trip to the shops on a weekend isn't greener than a 30 mpg car that gets used maybe once or twice a month when it's *really* needed.

people seem to get fixated on single numeric factors as opposed to considering appropriate usage in all kinds of situations. I guess electricity suppliers is another one of them.

I hear the same argument for recycling.. we don't need to avoid over packaged products now because we have recycle bins... grrr....

[Adam1]

Yes, that's true, as you say, it applies to all green choices (transport, packaging etc). I guess some people want to be seen to be "doing their bit" - that expression is almost as annoying as "save the planet" - but don't want to make any changes to their living arrangements.

[RenewableCandy]

Ah, NPower. That takes me back.

Dear Which! team,

in May 2006 as a friend of mine in Hull lay dying of cancer (I'm not making this up) she was still having to deal with a bill from NPower from the January for over a thousand pounds! To put this into perspective, the bill applied to only a few weeks' time period, during which it was physically impossible to have used so much energy in an unoccupied, unheated house, and to make matters even more obvious, my friend was on a pay-as-you-go meter (and had been since moving in 2 years previously)!

I took a look at this meter and could instantly see that what NPower were
claiming was impossible: the pre-pay meter read in pounds and pence, and counted down: the readings reproduced on the letter were in kWh (units) and very obviously counted up. The two readings, one of which contained an obvious single-digit mistake, had a difference of exactly 9,900 kwh, hence the high cost. My friend's Macmillan Nurse (or possibly some other carer, I'm afraid I didn't meet them) took up the case. My friend then passed away.

But that wasn't the end of it. The debt was pursued even after her death (in June): I rang them but was told they couldn't accept any information from me and cited the data protection act. The debt got passed on to an agency, making everything twice as complicated. (This was in stark contrast to, for example, the TV licensing people who merely asked for a copy of the death certificate and then withdrew their claim for a non-paid tv licence.)

The pursuit of this debt only ended in October 2006, after the solicitors who dealt with my friend's will took over.

...

Thank you,

Yeah they built North Hoyle wind farm and then for some mysterious reason turned into absolute bar-stewards.

[caspian]

I've not had any problems with Ecotricity at all to be fair to them so will be switching back across to them again in the new place.

We used to be with Ecotricity for a few years, but we lost faith in them because they always seemed so disorganised whenever we called them. Their heart is in the right place, but they really need to improve their customer services.

[biffvernon]

I've had excellent service from Ecotricity. Call them and you get a real live human being answereing the phone.

[caspian]

I've had excellent service from Ecotricity. Call them and you get a real live human being answereing the phone.

In my experience, the human being on the end of the phone always seems to sound as if it's their first day on the job. Maybe it is, and they have a large turnover of staff. In any case, it didn't inspire my confidence.

[Janco2]

We find Good Energy really helpful to deal with.

[chubbygristle]

Yes, that's true, as you say, it applies to all green choices (transport, packaging etc). I guess some people want to be seen to be "doing their bit" - that expression is almost as annoying as "save the planet" - but don't want to make any changes to their living arrangements.

Monbiot has just expressed similar sentiments in the Guardian... (maybe he reads Powerswitch forums )....

"These bags for life were discarded with all the other eco-bling as soon as something newer came along. But they served their purpose: they permitted the rich and famous to telegraph their green credentials while still running the Aga, the Range Rover, the yacht and the second and third homes in far-flung parts of the world. By buying the bag, they could tick another box: now, among their other attributes, they were environmentally conscious."

So why this fetishisation? Because dealing with plastic bags is easy. Easy for the government, easy for retailers, easy for shoppers. It threatens no one, makes money for the shops (if they charge for their bags) and ensures that everyone feels better about themselves, while continuing to trash the biosphere just as we did before.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/04 ... ic-fetish/

[biffvernon]

We find Good Energy really helpful to deal with.

Yes but they just buy and sell the renewablly generated electricity that the big guys are forced to generate through ROCs. Ecotricity spend their profits on building new windfarms. That's what makes all the difference and why everybody should sign up with them.

(Ecotricity also spend a little on playing with wind-powered cars. http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/html-emails ... etter.html)

[Janco2]

Just thought I'd mention that Good Energy also have a wind farm in Cornwall and are right now investing in bigger turbines to replace the much older ones that were the first turbines to appear in Cornwall many years ago.