Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring California utilities to get one-third of their power from renewable sources, giving the state the most aggressive alternative energy mandate in the U.S.
California utilities and other electricity providers have until the end of 2020 to draw 33 percent of their power from solar panels, windmills and other renewable sources.
Brown signed the bill at a solar panel manufacturing plant near San Jose.
"There are people who think we can drill our way to happiness and prosperity," the Democratic governor told hundreds of plant workers and other supporters gathered to witness the signing. "Instead of just taking oil from thousands of miles away, we're taking the sun and converting it."
Previous California law required utilities to get 20 percent of their power from renewable sources.
Supporters of the higher standard said it will reassure investors and keep money flowing to develop alternative energy sources. They say that will lead to cleaner air and job growth in the clean-energy sector.
Critics of the legislation said sticking with traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas would be cheaper, keeping costs down for business and residential ratepayers. Business groups point to estimates that the higher standard could drive up electricity costs for California ratepayers by more than 7 percent, despite language in the legislation to limit cost increases.
"Industry in California already pays electricity rates about 50 percent higher than the rest of the country," said Gino Di-Caro, spokesman for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. "With 33 percent, those rates are going to go up even more."
Brown said he would look carefully at whether the new standard will drive up electricity costs but said increasing use of renewable sources makes sense for California and the country.
"I know one thing: Being dependent on foreign fossil fuel is not good for our economy, it's not good for our security, and it's not good for our climate," the Democratic governor told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "We have to be bold."
Making California less reliant on fossil fuels will benefit the state's air quality and make oil supply a smaller factor in America's foreign policy, said state Sen. Joe Simitian, who carried the legislation.
The Democrat from Palo Alto was instrumental in setting the current renewable power standard at 20 percent and has been working for four years to get the increase to 33 percent.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed an earlier version of the bill but issued an executive order that called for 33 percent renewable power by 2020. Simitian kept pushing to get the higher standard written into state law, which is harder to undo than an executive order.
When his bill died on the Senate floor as the 2010 legislative session ended, Simitian said the action sent a chill through the renewable power generation market. Supporters said the new bill sends a clear signal to financial backers that demand for renewable power will keep growing.
REPowerEU Plan accelerates the EU's shift from Russian fossil fuels with renewable energy, energy efficiency, solar, wind, heat pumps, faster permits, and energy security measures by 2027, backed by grants, loans, and grid investments.
Key Points
EU plan to quit Russian fossil fuels via renewables and efficiency, with faster permits, by 2027.
✅ €300bn in grants and loans for efficiency and renewables
✅ Streamlined permits; solar mandate on new buildings
The European Union’s executive arm moved Wednesday to jump-start plans for the 27-nation bloc to abandon Russian energy amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, proposing a nearly 300 billion-euro ($315 billion) package that includes more efficient use of fuels and faster rollout of renewable power, even as rolling back electricity prices remains challenging.
The European Commission’s investment initiative is meant to help the 27 EU countries start weaning themselves off Russian fossil fuels this year, a move many see as a wake-up call to ditch fossil fuels across Europe. The goal is to deprive Russia, the EU’s main supplier of oil, natural gas and coal, of tens of billions in revenue and strengthen EU climate policies.
“We are taking our ambition to yet another level to make sure that we become independent from Russian fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels when announcing the package, dubbed REPowerEU.
With no end in sight to Russia’s war in Ukraine and European energy security shaken, amid what some describe as an energy nightmare for the region, the EU is rushing to align its geopolitical and climate interests for the coming decades. It comes amid troubling signs that have raised concerns about energy supplies that the EU relies on and have no quick replacements for, including Russia cutting off member nations Poland and Bulgaria after they refused a demand to pay for natural gas in rubles.
The bloc’s dash to ditch Russian energy stems from a combination of voluntary and mandatory actions. Both reflect the political discomfort of helping fund Russia’s military campaign in a country that neighbors the EU and wants to join the bloc.
An EU ban on coal from Russia is due to start in August, and the bloc has pledged to try to reduce demand for Russian gas by two-thirds by year's end, while debating gas price cap strategies to curb volatility. Meanwhile, a proposed EU oil embargo has hit a roadblock from Hungary and other landlocked countries that worry about the cost of switching to alternative sources.
In a bid to swing Hungary behind the oil phaseout, the REPowerEU package expects oil investment funding of around 2 billion euros for member nations highly dependent on Russian oil.
Energy savings and renewables form the cornerstones of the package, which would be funded mainly by an economic stimulus program put in place to help member countries overcome the slump triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The European Commission said the price tag for abandoning Russian fossil fuels completely by a 2027 target date is 210 billion euros. Its package includes 56 billion euros for energy efficiency and 86 billion euros for renewables.
Von der Leyen cited a total funding pot of 72 billion euros in grants and 225 billion euros for loans.
The European Commission also proposed ways to streamline the approval processes in EU countries for renewable projects, which can take up to a decade to get through red tape, as part of a broader effort to revamp the electricity market across Europe. The commission said approval times need to fall to as little as a year or less.
It put forward a specific plan on solar energy, seeking to double photovoltaic capacity by 2025 and pushing for a phased-in obligation to install solar panels on new buildings.
Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, called REPowerEU a “jumbo package” whose success will ultimately depend on political will in the bloc’s national capitals, with examples such as Germany’s 200 billion euro energy price shield illustrating the scale of national responses.
“Most of the actions entailed in the plan require either national implementation or strong coordination among member states,” Tagliapietra said. “The extent to which countries really engage is going to be defining.”
The German energy think tank Agora Energiewende said the EU’s plan “gives too little attention to concrete initiatives that reduce fossil fuel demand in the short term and thereby misses the opportunity to simultaneously enhance Europe’s energy security and meet Europe’s climate objectives.”
The group's research shows rapidly expanding solar, wind parks and use of heat pumps for low-temperature heat in industry and buildings could be done faster than constructing new liquefied natural gas terminals or gas infrastructure, said Matthias Buck, its director for Europe.
The European Commission’s recommendations on short-term national actions to cut demand for Russian energy, which include potential emergency measures to limit electricity prices as well, coincide with deliberations underway in the bloc since last year on setting more ambitious EU energy-efficiency and renewable targets for 2030.
Those targets, being negotiated by the European Parliament and national governments, are part of the bloc’s commitments to a 55% cut in greenhouse gases by decade's end, compared with 1990 emissions, and to climate neutrality by 2050.
Von der Leyen urged the European Parliament and national governments to deepen the commission’s July proposal for an energy efficiency target of 9% and renewable energy goal of 40% by 2030. She said those objectives should be 13% and 45%, respectively.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark plan to build North Sea wind farms to help cut carbon emissions.
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
China Industrial Power Demand 2020 highlights COVID-19 disruption to electricity consumption as factory output stalls; IHS Markit estimates losses equal to Chile's usage, impacting thermal coal, LNG, and Hubei's industrial load.
Key Points
An analysis of COVID-19's hit to China's electricity use, cutting industry demand and fuel needs for coal and LNG.
✅ 73 billion kWh loss equals Chile's annual power use
✅ Cuts translate to 30m tonnes coal or 9m tonnes LNG
✅ Hubei peak load 21 percent below plan amid shutdowns
China’s industrial power demand in 2020 may decline by as much as 73 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), according to IHS Markit, as the outbreak of the coronavirus has curtailed factory output and prevented some workers from returning to their jobs.
FILE PHOTO: Smoke is seen from a cooling tower of a China Energy ultra-low emission coal-fired power plant during a media tour, in Sanhe, Hebei province, China July 18, 2019. REUTERS/Shivani Singh The cut represents about 1.5% of industrial power consumption in China. But, as the country is the world’s biggest electricity consumer and analyses of China's electricity appetite routinely underscore its scale, the loss is equal to the power used in the whole of Chile and it illustrates the scope of the disruption caused by the outbreak.
The reduction is the energy equivalent of about 30 million tonnes of thermal coal, at a time when China aims to reduce coal power production, or about 9 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), IHS said. The coal figure is more than China’s average monthly imports last year while the LNG figure is a little more than one month of imports, based on customs data.
China has tried to curtail the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1,400 and infected over 60,000 by extending the Lunar New Year holiday for an extra week and encouraging people to work from home, measures that contributed to a global dip in electricity demand as well.
Last year, industrial users consumed 4.85 trillion kWh electricity, accounting for 67% of the country’s total, even as India's electricity demand showed sharp declines in the region.
Xizhou Zhou, the global head of power and Renewables at IHS Markit, said that in a severe case where the epidemic goes on past March, China’s economic growth will be only 4.2% during 2020, down from an initial forecast of 5.8%, while power consumption will climb by only 3.1%, down from 4.1% initially, even as power cuts and blackouts raise concerns.
“The main uncertainty is still how fast the virus will be brought under control,” said Zhou, adding that the impact on the power sector will be relatively modest from a full-year picture in 2020, even though China's electric power woes are already clouding solar markets.
In Hubei province, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, the peak power load at the end of January was 21% less than planned, mirroring how Japan's power demand was hit during the outbreak, data from Wood Mackenzie showed.
Industrial operating rates point to a firm reduction in power consumption in China.
Utilization rates at plastic processors are between 30% and 60% and the low levels are expected to last for another two week, according to ICIS China.
Weaving machines at textile plants are operating at below 10% of capacity, the lowest in five years, ICIS data showed. China is the world’s biggest textile and garment exporter.
BC Hydro Peak Electricity Demand reached a record 10,902 megawatts during a cold snap, driven by home heating. Peak hours surged; load shifting and energy conservation can ease strain on the grid and lower bills.
Key Points
Record winter peak of 10,902 MW, set during a cold snap, largely from home heating demand at peak hours.
✅ All-time high load: 10,902 MW between 5 and 6 p.m., Dec. 27.
✅ Cold snap increased home heating demand during peak hours.
✅ Shift laundry and dishwashers off-peak; use programmable thermostats.
BC Hydro says the province set a new record for peak electricity demand on Monday as temperatures hit extreme lows, and Quebec shattered consumption records during similar cold weather.
Between 5 and 6 p.m. on Dec. 27, demand for electricity hit an all-time high of 10,902 megawatts, which is higher than the previous record of 10,577 megawatts set in 2020, and follows a record-breaking year in 2021 for the utility.
“The record represents a single moment in the hour when demand for electricity was the highest yesterday,” says Simi Heer, BC Hydro spokesperson, in a statement. “Most of the increase is likely due to additional home heating required during this cold snap.”
In addition to the peak demand record on Monday, BC Hydro has observed an overall increase in electricity demand since Friday, and has noted that cryptocurrency mining electricity use is an emerging load in the province as well. Monday’s hourly peak demand was 18 per cent higher than Friday’s, while Calgary's electricity use soared during a frigid February, underscoring how cold snaps strain regional grids.
“BC Hydro has enough supply options in place to meet increasing electricity demand,” adds Heer, and pointed to customer supports like a winter payment plan for households managing higher bills. “However, if British Columbians want to help ease some of the demand on the system during peak times, we encourage shifting activities like doing laundry or running dishwashers to earlier in the day or later in the evening.”
BC Hydro is also offering energy conservation tips for people looking to lower their electricity use and their electricity bills, noting that Earth Hour once saw electricity use rise in the province:
Manage your home heating actively by turning the heat down when no one his home or when everyone is sleeping. Consider installing a programmable thermostat to automatically adjust temperatures at different times based on your family's activities, and remember that in warmer months wasteful air conditioning can add $200 to summer energy bills. BC Hydro recommends the following temperatures:
16 degrees Celsius when sleeping or away from home 21 degrees Celsius when relaxing, watching TV 18 degrees Celsius when doing housework or cleaning
Iraq Electricity Crisis intensifies as summer heat drives demand; households face power outages, reliance on private generators, distorted tariffs, and strained grid capacity despite government reforms, Siemens upgrades, and IEA warnings.
Key Points
A supply-demand gap causing outages, generator reliance, and grid inefficiencies across Iraq, worsened by summer peaks.
✅ Siemens deal to upgrade generation and grid
✅ Progressive tariffs to curb demand and waste
✅ Private generators fill gaps but raise costs
At a demonstration in June 2018, protesters in Basra loaded a black box resembling a coffin with the inscription “Electricity” onto the roof of a car. This was one demonstration of how much of a political issue electricity is in Iraq.
With what is likely to be another hot summer ahead, there is increasing pressure on the Baghdad government to improve access to electricity and water.
Many Iraqis blame the government for not providing adequate services despite the country’s oil wealth. Protests in southern Iraq last year turned violent, with demonstrators attacking governmental and political parties’ buildings; in neighboring Iran, blackouts also sparked protests over outages.
“It is very hard” to deal with the electricity issues, said Iraqi journalist Methaq al-Fayyadh, adding that the lack of reliable electricity was not a new problem and affects most parts of the country.
Dozens of people protested June 1 in Karbala against prices for new generators and demanded an improvement to the electricity situation.
In anticipation of high temperatures during Eid al-Fitr, the Electricity Ministry called on governorates to adhere to allocated quotas and told the public to ration electricity.
“Outages remain a daily occurrence for most households because increasing generating capacity has been outrun by increasing demand for electricity, as surging demand worldwide demonstrates,” noted the International Energy Agency (IAE) in April.
This is particularly the case, the authors said, as the hot summer months, when temperatures can top 50 degrees Celsius, drive up the use of air conditioning.
The Iraqi government has made improving the electricity supply one of its priorities, including nuclear power plans under consideration. The Electricity Ministry, headed by Luay al-Khatteeb, announced in May that national electricity production had reached 17 gigawatts.
Khatteeb presented comparative electricity data for May from 2018 and 2019, indicating production increases on every day of the month. IEA data indicate that available electricity supply has increased over the past five years and the gap between supply and demand has widened.
The government signed an agreement with German company Siemens this year to upgrade Iraq’s electricity grid, and in parallel deals with Iran to rehabilitate and develop the grid were finalized, according to Iranian officials. The agreement “includes the addition of new and highly efficient power generation capacity, rehabilitation and upgrade of existing plants and the expansion of transmission and distribution networks,” Siemens said.
The Iraqi prime minister’s office said the 4-year plan would be worth $15.7 billion. The first phase includes the installation of 13 transformer stations, cooling systems for power stations and building a 500-megawatt, gas-fired power plant south of Baghdad.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Khatteeb said radical changes would happen in 2020, stating that the current situation was not “ideal” but “better” because of steps taken to create more energy, amid discussions on energy cooperation with Iran that could shape implementation.
Robert Tollast, of the Iraq Energy Institute, said the economics of the electricity system is distorted. Subsidies ensured that electricity provided by the national grid is almost free, he said. However, while the subsidies were designed to help the poor, the tariff system disadvantages them and does not create incentives to consume electricity more efficiently, he said.
A large part of families’ electricity expenditures goes to operators of privately owned generators, which run on fuel. These neighbourhood generators are used to close gaps in the electricity supply but are expensive, and regional fuel arrangements such as ENOC’s swap of Iraqi fuel have highlighted supply constraints. Generator operators have sometimes worked with armed groups to prevent upgrades to the grid that could hurt their business.
Until 1990, the Iraq electricity sector was considered among the best in the region. That legacy was destroyed by successive wars and international sanctions. With Iraq’s population growing at a rate of 1 million per year, peak demand is projected to double by 2030 if left unchecked, the IEA estimated.
Tollast said efforts to improve the distribution system and increase capacity are key but it is important “to tackle the problem from the demand side.” This entails implementing a progressive tariff scheme so users pay more if they consume more, he said. There is a “tremendous use of energy per capita in Iraq,” Tollast said.
In the current tariff structure, consumers pay a fixed price if they use more than 4,000-kilowatt hours per year, a relatively low amount, meaning the price per unit drops the more one consumes.
Any change to the tariff system must be accompanied by a “political campaign” to explain the changes, said Tollast, adding that more investment in the electricity sector and a “change in culture” of using electricity was needed. “The current system is unsustainable, even with high oil prices,” he said.
Fayyadh said people don’t expect the government will be able to fix the electricity issue before summer, having failed to do so in the past.
Tollast struck a more optimistic tone, saying it was unlikely that Iran, which supplies about 40% of Iraq’s power, would cut its export of electricity to Iraq this year as it did in 2018. He added that the water situation was better than last year when the country experienced drought. Iraq has also been processing more flare gas, which can be used to generate electricity.
“There is an expectation that this year might not be as bad as last year,” he concluded.
Community Power Tariff UK delivers clean electricity from community energy projects, sourcing renewable energy from local wind and solar farms, with carbon offset gas, transparent provenance, fair pricing, and reinvestment in local generators across Britain.
Key Points
UK energy plan delivering 100% community renewable power with carbon-offset gas, sourced from local wind and solar.
✅ 100% community-generated electricity from UK wind and solar
✅ Fair prices with profits reinvested in local projects
✅ Carbon-offset gas and verified, transparent provenance
UK homes will soon be able to plug into community wind and solar farms from anywhere in the country through the first energy tariff to offer clean electricity exclusively from community projects.
The deal from Co-op Energy comes as green energy suppliers race to prove their sustainability credentials amid rising competition for eco-conscious customers and “greenwashing” in the market.
The energy supplier will charge an extra £5 a month over Co-op’s regular tariff to provide electricity from community energy projects and gas which includes a carbon offset in the price.
Co-op, which is operated by Octopus Energy after it bought the business from the Midcounties Co-operative last year, will source the clean electricity for its new tariff directly from 90 local renewable energy generation projects across the UK, including the Westmill wind and solar farms in Oxfordshire. It plans to use all profits to reinvest in maintaining the community projects and building new ones.
Phil Ponsonby, the chief executive of Midcounties Co-operative, said the tariff is the UK’s only one to be powered by 100% community-generated electricity and would ensure a fair price is paid to community generators too, amid a renewable energy auction boost that supports wider deployment.
Customers on the Community Power tariff will be able to “see exactly where it is being generated at small scale sites across the UK, and, with new rights to sell solar power back to energy firms, they know it is benefiting local communities”, he said.
Co-op, which has about 300,000 customers, has set itself apart from a rising number of energy supply deals which are marked as 100% renewable, but are not as green as they seem, even as many renewable projects are on hold due to grid constraints.
Consumer group Which? has found that many suppliers offer renewable energy tariffs but do not generate renewable electricity themselves or have contracts to buy any renewable electricity directly from generators.
Instead, the “pale green” suppliers exploit a loophole in the energy market by snapping up cheap renewable energy certificates, without necessarily buying energy from renewables projects.
The certificates are issued by the regulator to renewable energy developers for each megawatt generated, but these can be sold separately from the electricity for a fraction of the price.
A survey conducted last year found that one in 10 people believe that a renewables tariff means that the supplier generates at least some of its electricity from its own renewable energy projects.
Ponsonby said the wind and solar schemes that generate electricity for the Community Power tariff “plough the profits they make back into their neighbourhoods or into helping other similar projects get off the ground”.
Greg Jackson, the chief executive of Octopus Energy, said being able to buy locally-sourced clean, green energy is “a massive jump in the right direction” which will help grow the UK’s green electricity capacity nationwide.
“Investing in more local energy infrastructure and getting Britain’s homes run by the sun when it’s shining and wind energy when it’s blowing can end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels sooner than we hoped,” he said.
