New way for businesses to buy green electricity

There are already a number of companies offering green tariffs to businesses in the UK, including Green Energy, London Electricity, Scottish and Southern Energy, ScottishPower/MANWEB, SWALEC, Bizz Energy, Good Energy and Ecotricity. According to a spokesperson for Smartest Energy, what make this new service different, is the degree of flexibility it offers – businesses are not tied into a fixed proportion of renewables at a fixed price, for a fixed term.

The new service allows customers to specify the exact fuel mix of the electricity they use – what proportion is green, what proportion is brown – allowing them to have 100 per cent from renewables if they like. (Good Energy is currently the only supplier in the market that only buys and sells 100 per cent renewable energy).

SmartestEnergy, which claims to be the largest purchaser and supplier of electricity from the independent generation sector – accounting for more than 40 per cent of the market – says it is able to deliver power equivalent to nearly 10 per cent of the UK’s renewable output. Its renewable energy comes from a variety of technologies including landfill gas, waste to energy, hydro, biomass and wind.

The new service will allow its customers to identify exactly which renewable technology, and even which producer, they want to buy from. This will allow a business or local authority to put its weight behind renewable energy projects in their area, for example, or support a particular technology.

Each unit of renewable energy comes with numbered climate change levy exemption certificates (LECs) attached to specific power plants, along with a renewable energy guarantee of origin (REGO) – which means the new service not only allows its business customers to go green, but to prove it too, SmartestEnergy suggests.

All billing will be done electronically which, the company says, not only saves on paper, but also provides customers with “a dynamic service to help manage their energy costs”.

Jo Butlin, vice president for retail at SmartestEnergy said: “It’s quite clear that business wants to improve its green credentials but until now has never had the option to buy ‘green electricity’ in the same way that domestic users can.

"We are offering a flexible solution, from source to supply, where customers can specify exactly how much renewable power they want and which sources they want it from. Each unit they buy creates greater demand and additional support for the UK independent renewable generation sector.”