Time for the first of my NYR posts about how I am trying to change the world using my consumer power. For this one I am cheating slightly because its not something I actually did in January, but I am trying to se January to convince my parents to do it, so I think it counts.
So, quick introduction. Ecotricity are and energy supplier. They were the worlds first green energy supplier and remain one of the largest. When I first decided I wants a green energy supplier I spent a lot of time researching different options and I decided Ecotricity were my favourite, for a number of reasons.
Firstly because Ecotricity are run as an not-for-profit organisation. There are no shareholders so they put all their profits into further research into alternative and effective green energy sources. For me this is very important, if we are really going to use green energy properly we need to do more research into it. Secondly Ecotricity are one of the few companies which offer green gas. Currently they are aiming to be the first company to build a green gas plant in the UK, using food waste to produce energy which we can use. This is a brilliant idea and its brilliant ideas like that that are going to save us all when the giant spaghetti monster comes.
One thing that did totally surprise me was that it didn't cost any more. Ecotricitiy have 2 simple tariffs. The first uses a majority of their green energy supplemented with brown energy they buy in (check the website for full details of the mix). This tariff tracks the 'big 6' so doesn't cost any more than your current supplier. So you can be doing good without costing you any extra! The second is their full green energy - this is 100% green using a mixture of their green energy supplemented with bought in green energy. This costs a little more, so if you an't afford it you don't have to.
But to be perfectly honest, beyond all the green energy and saving the planet messages I really love Ecotricity because they are nice. According to Ofgem's complaints reports Ecotricity had the least complaints per 1000 customers in 2012, and from my experience I can see why. Call them and you talk, not only to an English human being, but they will do their best efforts to make sure you always speak to the same human being. If you email your own personal advisor will call you back, the same one, every time. I wasn't sure if Economy 7 was really saving me any money so I emailed them and told them. Later the same day they called me back and told me that they had calculated that on a standard tarrif I would have saved £1.10 over the last 3 months. So they had swapped me over but because it was such a small difference and such a short space of time they would monitor it for the following year and let me know if I would be better switching back. Can you imagine nPower or British Gas doing that?!
Check out their website for all sorts of fun and interesting facts about what they are doing:
ecotricity - because they are awesome
and really do seriously consider what you could be doing to help save our planet.
P.S. We got 6 free bottles of wine when we switched through the £50 naked wines voucher they give you and if that doesn't incentivise you to action then nothing will!
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