Hi

I'm the MD of Ecotricity, and one of my team pointed me to this blog post... I am really chuffed that the message about our mission to build new sources of renewable energy is getting out there and being understood - despite us not spending millions on TV ads! I'm also very pleased that you chose us in the end following your really interesting discussion about us in your earlier post about whether we are that really green .

We *do* have a slight dilemma about how much detail to go into in order to explain why we are doing the best we can to change the way electricity is made in the UK; If we dumb the message down then well informed people feel patronised or if we go into full detail we bore the pants off people that don't really want the details!!

We also have a 100% green tariff - it contributes exactly the same amount towards the building of new renewable generation as our standard tariff - New Energy. For every pound our customers spend on their bills we spend a pound building. New Energy Plus is topped up with green electricity to make it 100% and costs 5% more than New Energy (existing green costs more) - those are the only two differences. Some people just want a 100% tariff now, even though they get the need to build. 100% tariffs don't bring any greater benefit than our New Energy though.

I realise it sounds counter-intuitive that a tariff currently containing a mix of nuclear, coal, gas and renewables is as good a choice than a 100% green tariff.

With our New Energy - we supply *way* more renewables (around 30% this year) than the UK grid's feeble 4% - that's the point that SF mentioned in comments on your previous post - every year we want the percentage of renewables in our standard tariff to grow until we can drop the rest! What we don't want to do oversell green energy and face the prospect of not being able to fulfil that promise.

I haven't done a post on nuclear yet on my blog - but your post here has prompted me to do so. Would you mind if I quote and link to you in the post I am drafting? Your question about our high mix of nuclear must be on lots of people's minds when they are thinking about using their electricity bill to fight climate change. Having a blog allows me to go into a little more detail than our main Ecotricity website for those who want to dig a little deeper...

Thanks again for choosing Ecotricity.
Cheers
Dale Vince MD Ecotricity

Dale,

Thanks for popping by and taking the time to write.

That's an interesting point about not spending millions on TV ads; what might be the expected gains from huge TV campaigns and what would ecotricity customers think of such a move? I'm a big fan of organic growth and that seems to be the way it's going. Personally there's a huge satisfaction aspect to it all, not just from doing the right thing and investing in renewable energy but also by having done the homework with the valuable input of people with their heads screwed on.

I see the dilemma in your approach, and again feel you're going about things the right way; ecotricity are certainly striking the right balance and I'd love to see how numbers progress.

30% is a good proportion of renewables for ecotricity to be generating and I look forward to the day when it reaches 100%. Let's hope it's not too far away now. The only thing that does concern me about the current mix is that although nuclear is a fairly clean energy during the generating of power there's that old chestnut radioactive waste. Whilst we use nuclear energy isn't there a responsibility for us to clean it up too? Does the price paid for nuclear energy contribute to the storage, handling and "disposal" of nuclear waste?

Dale, please feel free to quote me or link to anything I've mentioned; I certainly admit to having had a fair dose of scepticism to start with but the conclusion is to push forward and make renewable energy more prevalent.

Keep me posted :)