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Switch Your Energy
What
If you’re looking to take a step with low effort and lots of impact, this is it – changing your electricity supplier will reduce your carbon pollution, and send a political signal that customers want to decarbonize the energy system.
Why
Crude oil, gas and coal all generate massive amounts of carbon pollution - often up to a quarter of a country’s total. Moving to a supplier who provides zero carbon1 energy will dramatically reduce your carbon pollution.
Switching your energy has other benefits, too. Generating electricity from zero carbon sources encourages governments and business to move our energy systems further away from fossil fuels.
How
Search to find a zero carbon energy supplier in your region - this means anyone who invests in producing zero carbon energy to feed your national grid. Evaluate the competition, and then make the switch with your preferred company using the instructions they give you.
If you don’t have zero carbon energy suppliers in your country, you can’t take this step for now, but consider taking the step to tell your politicians it is something you care about.
References
1 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes that electricity from sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and hydro and nuclear produces zero carbon dioxide emissions at the point of generation.
Typically, zero carbon electricity purchased by energy suppliers is fed into a National Grid. Customers receive electricity via the National Grid, not directly from zero carbon generators.
Impact metric calculations:
Typical energy consumption per person based on Ofgem (2017), 'Typical Domestic Consumption Values', using Electricity Profile 1. Assumed non-electric heating = medium; electric heating = high
If users don’t know their current type of energy provider, we assume they’re on a standard tariff that reflects the overall energy mix of the grid.
Because most renewable energy providers sell their ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) on the energy market to other higher carbon-emitting energy suppliers, we can’t count the 100% of the carbon savings as being fully additional. Therefore, we only account for 5% of the total energy savings (this is the portion of ROCs that Good Energy retires from the electricity market).