• Green Electricity Watch
• Rating and scoring GreenPower
• Accredited and unaccredited renewable energy
• Cost
• Mechanics – how does GreenPower work
• Electricity, renewable energy, and the environment

GREEN ELECTRICITY WATCH

1.What is the purpose of Green Electricity Watch?

2.What is Green Electricity Watch?

Green Electricity Watch was established in 2002, and is a coalition of three leading Australian environment organisations: the Australian Conservation Foundation, Total Environment Centre, and WWF-Australia. In 2007 Green Electricity Watch published its fourth survey and issued its fourth report. Download this and previous years reports.

RATING AND SCORING GREENPOWER PRODUCTS

3.How did you rate the products?

Companies selling GreenPower were sent a detailed questionnaire, which was followed up with a telephone interview. Their websites, callcentres, and printed advertising were also assessed. The scoring covers three areas:

• How much does the product drive the development of renewable energy projects?
• How much does the product increase uptake of GreenPower?
• How clear is the advertisement and promotion of the product, including clear and correct use of GreenPower logo?

Penalties were given for two practices which Green Electricity Watch considers misleading, or which may divert people away from GreenPower. The first is describing the non-GreenPower portion of products as ‘renewable’ , and the second is selling offset products for electricity.

4.Have you rated one type of renewable energy over another, for example wind power over biomass?

No, all renewable energy accepted by the GreenPower rules is rated exactly the same. Renewable energy derived from materials from native forests is excluded by these rules.

5.Who is responsible for the rating of green electricity on the Green Electricity Watch?

Green Electricity Watch employs an independent energy consultant to undertake the survey and carry out the rating. The consultant devised the methodology, which was signed off  by the environment groups involved.

6.Why do some companies which offer 100% accredited Green Power products not get the highest star rating?

The survey includes a number of other factors apart from the amount of GreenPower in the product. Companies are rated on how their GreenPower sales compare to total sales, what sort of agreements they make to purchase GreenPower from renewable energy generators, and how clear their information and promotions are. Penalties are given for practices which Green Electricity Watch considers misleading, or which may divert people away from GreenPower. Penalties have a big impact on a product’s score.  

7.Is GreenPower with the same star rating all the same, or are the products in ranked order?  How did you decide the order of the products?

Every product is scored out of 100, and products are ranked according to how much they scored. 4 stars are given to all products which scored more than 60 out of a hundred, so there can be quite a big difference between two 4 star products.

ACCREDITED AND NON-ACCREDITED RENEWABLE ENERGY

8.Some electricity retailers have products which include 10% or 20% of accredited Green Power but which are ‘100% renewable’. What does this mean?

It means that the company is buying renewable energy which is not accredited as GreenPower. This may come from a number of different sources: it is likely to be hydro or bagasse (sugar cane) generation that has been part of the electricity system for a long time, or renewable energy which is contributing to legislated targets. In either case, the renewable energy would be fed into our system whether or not you purchase it as part of a GreenPower product.

9.Why isn't any renewable energy good? Why does it need to be new and accredited?

When someone buys GreenPower, they usually want to make a difference to their greenhouse emissions. If their purchase has no effect on the amount of renewable energy that goes into our electricity system, it has no effect on greenhouse emissions. Green Electricity Watch considers the non-accredited part does not increase the amount of renewable energy. Accredited GreenPower is certified to come from new renewable generators - additional since when the scheme started – and continuing sales increase the size of the market so more renewable energy generation is built. Renewable energy built before the scheme started, and renewable energy counted towards legislated targets, will be there regardless of your GreenPower purchase.

10.What is a ‘non-accredited’ green electricity product?

A non-accredited green electricity product contains no accredited GreenPower. Green Electricity Watch considers it makes no difference to your greenhouse emissions. It is likely to contain renewable energy from generators that have been there for a considerable time, or which contribute to legislated targets. The renewable energy is likely to be there whether or not it you purchase it as green electricity.

11. How do people know it’s accredited?

All accredited products should carry the GreenPower tick, and clearly display how much GreenPower they contain.

COST

12.Will GreenPower cost more?

New renewable energy is usually (although not always) more expensive than coal fired electricity. It usually costs up to about 5 cents extra per unit (one unit is one kilowatt hour).

13.Why does Green Power cost more?

The environmental cost of coal fired electricity is not included in the costs. In addition, large scale use of renewable energy other than hydro is relatively recent, so the technology costs are still falling. Fossil fuel generation has had years of development, most of it publicly subsidized, so the costs have already fallen. Most ‘new’ renewable technologies are gradually reducing in cost as more and more of them are put in place.

14.Why are some Green Power products more expensive than others?

Some renewable energies are more expensive than others. For example, solar is more expensive than wind energy, which is more expensive than electricity from landfill gas. Some electricity retailers choose not to charge for their lowest GreenPower percentage product (the 10% or 20% GreenPower product).

15.How do retailers charge for GreenPower?

Retailers charge for GreenPower in several different ways:

• Some retailers charge per unit of GreenPower that you use. If you buy 10% GreenPower, you will be charged this extra cost on 10% of your electricity consumption.
• With some GreenPower products, you purchase a fixed amount of GreenPower (so many units per year, or per day), which are charged at a fixed rate. In this case your costs are fixed as well.
• In some cases retailers charge a fixed amount, but you get a variable amount of GreenPower, equal to a percentage of your electricity use. The company commits to feed GreenPower equivalent to 10%, or 50%, or 100%, of your electricity use into the grid, but charge you a fixed amount regardless of what you use.

16.The scorecard tells me the extra charge per unit of GreenPower but some retailers charge a fixed amount. How was this worked out?

When the company sells a product based on a percentage of electricity consumption, but charges a fixed amount, we have calculated the unit cost of GreenPower based on average Australian electricity use. If your electricity use is lower than average, then the unit cost of GreenPower to you is higher than this, and conversely, if your electricity use is particularly high, the unit cost to you will be lower than average.

17.How do I work out how much extra GreenPower will cost me?

If the cost is fixed, then the cost per week listed is exactly what you pay. If the charge is variable, multiply the charge per unit of GreenPower by your annual electricity use. If you don’t know your annual electricity use, the ‘cost per week’ listed for variable cost products is based on average electricity use. This will give you an indication of how much you will pay, but if you use more than the Australian average you will pay more than this.

18.The scorecard tells me the extra charge per unit of Greenpower. How does this compare to a ‘normal’ unit of electricity?

The average cost per unit of electricity is 12 cents per kilowatt hour, but this varies from state to state and from retailer to retailer. The extra charge shown in this column is whatever you pay for GreenPower in addition to the ‘normal’ charge for electricity made by that supplier. Some retailers set a fixed price for GreenPower, rather than charging you according to how much you use. In this case the ‘charge per unit GreenPower’ listed is calculated from average Australian electricity use. For example, if a 10% GreenPower had a fixed cost, this cost has been divided by 680 to get the unit cost for GreenPower, because 10% of average Australian electricity use is 680 kWh.

19.What is a block product?

Some retailers sell a fixed amount of GreenPower, rather than varying the GreenPower according to how much electricity you use. You can generally choose different size blocks. Green Electricity Watch has compared the amount of GreenPower in the block to average Australian electricity use (6830 kWh) to calculate the percentage of GreenPower in the product. If you use more than average electricity, this means it will supply a smaller percentage of your electricity.

MECHANICS - HOW DOES GREENPOWER WORK?

20.If I pay for GreenPower, does renewable energy come straight to my home?

Renewable energy equivalent to your purchase will be fed into the electricity grid, but there is no way of knowing where a particular bit of electricity goes to. This is how all electricity sales work: your electricity retailer purchases electricity from generators to make sure that enough is fed into the grid to cover all their customers’ electricity use.

21.How do I switch to GreenPower?

Contact the company which sells the product you are interested, and they will advise you. If you use a company that is not an electricity retailer, you will buy the GreenPower separate to your electricity supply, so you do not need to change your electricity retailer.

22.Will I notice a difference at home?

No.

23. How can a product be more than 100%  GreenPower?

One GreenPower product is “200%”: in this case the electricity company purchases enough GreenPower to make sure that renewable generation equivalent to double your electricity use goes into the grid. It is as if you were also converting your neighbour’s house to GreenPower. One product is “117%”: this is a block  product, so you are purchasing a fixed amount of GreenPower; the amount is greater than the average Australian electricity use, although what percentage of your electricity it will be depends on how much you use.

24.Why would a retailer have more than one product with the same % GreenPower?

Sometimes companies offer different products for different states.
Sometimes a retailer will offer two products with the same percentage GreenPower in the same state because one is a “block” product, and one a “percentage” product.. With block products you buy a fixed amount of GreenPower (for example, 1,000 units) and you pay a fixed additional charge.  A percentage product gives you, for example, 20%, 50% or 100% of your electricity as GreenPower, and you usually pay per unit consumed.

ELECTRICITY, RENEWABLE ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

25.What is the major contributor to greenhouse emissions in Australia?

Energy use in buildings and industry is responsible for half of Australia’s greenhouse emissions, and electricity alone is responsible for 35%. Transport, for comparison, is responsible for 14%, and agriculture for 16%.

26.How does switching to Green Power help the environment?

Switching to accredited GreenPower reduces Australia’s greenhouse emissions by increasing the proportion of renewable energy in our electricity supply. Electricity accounts for approximately 35% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Our electricity is among the most greenhouse intensive in the world, which means that we emit more greenhouse gases than most countries in Europe per unit of electricity that we use. This is mainly because of our reliance on coal. As renewable energy has close to zero greenhouse gases, purchasing GreenPower contributes to changing the greenhouse intensity of our power supply.

27.Australia is going to have a clean energy target, so why do I need to buy GreenPower?

Buying GreenPower lets you increase the amount of renewable energy in Australia over and above any mandatory targets. The renewable energy to meet mandatory targets (such as the Clean Energy Target) will happen regardless of whether you buy GreenPower. The Clean Energy Target which was announced recently would mean approximately 15% of our electricity would come from renewable energy by 2020, compared to 8% now. This is not nearly enough to reduce Australia’s greenhouse emissions in line with a target of avoiding dangerous climate change.

28.What are ‘offsets’ and why shouldn’t I buy offsets for my electricity use?

Offsets are when you compensate for your own emissions by reducing greenhouse emissions in another area. Companies offer to do this by buying emissions on your behalf. These may be from renewable energy or energy efficiency, or they may be from tree planting, or reducing emissions from waste tips. Green Electricity Watch considers that reducing emissions at source is always a better option. There is no need to offset your electricity purchase, as it is possible to get emissions free electricity from GreenPower.