British Gas Electricity

[RF Lighting]

I've just seen an advert on the telly for electric from BG.

They claim their electric produces less kg's of CO² per kWh, compared to the 5 other major suppliers, and their website backs this caim up.


How exactly does that work?

I thought all the electric came from the same power station, down the same cables and was distributed by the same DNOs as all the other suppliers.

The only difference being is who you pay your bill to.

Have I missed something?

 

[securespark]

Yeah. I missed it too...

Can anyone enlighten us?

 

[davy_owen_88]

Well I have the answer, British Gas are lying gobshites

 

[JohnD]

Since 1998, Electricity supply in the UK has been based on some assumptions and fictions.

Loosely speaking, you buy a bucketful of electricity, by dipping your bucket in a big pond. At the other end of the pond, a supplier tips in a bucketful of freshly manufactured electricity. For convenience, we assume that the bucketful you take out is the same bucketful that the supplier tipped in. This is of course a fiction.

Some suppliers tip in free-range electricity, produced by very clean Hydro-Electric or Windfarm generation. Some tip in dirty electricity produced by highly polluting end-of-life coalfired stations. Frequently it is the same supplier tipping in buckets of clean and buckets of dirty. For example there is a company which has Hydro-Electric generation in Scotland, but bought some very dirty coal-fired stations cheap, because they are so polluting that they will soon have to be closed down, and are in any case nearly worn out.

If you enjoy living in a world of fantasy, you can sign up to buy expensive clean electricity, and the company that supplies you will promise to buy this top-quality electricity from an organic manufacturer. However the electricity in your bucket will actually be the same mixture of clean and dirty that everyone else buys. Clean electricity wil continue being tipped into the pond (it can be very cheap to make) even if you don't contract to pay a premium price for it.

 

[tim west]

I always make sure my electricity is filtered first before i use it

 

[Steve]

The company I work for uses only green electricity in all 500+ of its stores.

I see what you mean JohnD about the mixture, however, the amount of electricity used by people on the "green" contracts MUST equal or be less than the amount of free range electric being tipped into the supply. Therefore the more people that sign up for the green tarriffs, the more demand there will be for green power to be produced.

I'd think our company alone would tip the scales and need more green energy produced!

 

[JohnD]

HaHaHa!

The Hydro just has a hundred buckets of electricity to sell. If somebody is willing to pay them a pound a bucket they will take it. If not, they will sell it for 75p, the same as a bucket of soot-stained electricity sells for.

A lot of it actually goes into the Aluminium-smelting works that was deliberately built next to a generation station to take advantage of the short distances they had to carry the buckets.

 

[Softus]

The company I work for uses only green electricity in all 500+ of its stores.

If what JohnD wrote is accurate, and I have every reason to trust him, then your employer can't possibly know that it's using only green electricity.

...the amount of electricity used by people on the "green" contracts MUST equal or be less than the amount of free range electric being tipped into the supply.

I don't see the logic in this statement. Surely the amount produced is determined by the supplier in anticipation of the contractual demand, rather than waiting to see how many people signed up on Tuesday and then start generating more electricity on Wednesday?

Therefore the more people that sign up for the green tarriffs, the more demand there will be for green power to be produced.

'Tis true - the more demand there is, the more demand there is.

 

[Thermo]

do they use special buckets then?

 

[JohnD]

I believe they are very frightening buckets, and nobody knows what they are. In the trade they speak of selling "Terror, Whats?"

 

[ricicle]

A lot of it actually goes into the Aluminium-smelting works that was deliberately built next to a generation station to take advantage of the short distances they had to carry the buckets.

Just to make your eyes water a single Aluminium smelting line can consume over 100 Mega-watts

 

[Softus]

Just to make your eyes water a single Aluminium smelting line can consume over 100 Mega-watts

Er, to be picky, that doesn't indicate the amount of energy used unless you know how long the smelting process takes.

 

[JohnD]

runs all day, every day. the smelting works I'm thinking of was built in the late 1930's I think, and really is next to a hydro electric scheme to achieve very low transmission costs.

Due to the cheap electricity they even have mobile cranes run off a very big flex (true!)

 

[ricicle]

Just to make your eyes water a single Aluminium smelting line can consume over 100 Mega-watts

Er, to be picky, that doesn't indicate the amount of energy used unless you know how long the smelting process takes.

Sorry, Mon Ami, I don't know how long it takes but lets say if it takes 6 minutes then that is 10 Mwh (10,000Kwh)

The wattage figures came from one of my electrical engineering books.

 

[Steve]

The company I work for uses only green electricity in all 500+ of its stores.

If what JohnD wrote is accurate, and I have every reason to trust him, then your employer can't possibly know that it's using only green electricity.

...the amount of electricity used by people on the "green" contracts MUST equal or be less than the amount of free range electric being tipped into the supply.

I don't see the logic in this statement. Surely the amount produced is determined by the supplier in anticipation of the contractual demand, rather than waiting to see how many people signed up on Tuesday and then start generating more electricity on Wednesday?

Therefore the more people that sign up for the green tarriffs, the more demand there will be for green power to be produced.

'Tis true - the more demand there is, the more demand there is.

Apologies for not being overly clear.

The company I work for only pays for green energy. The green energy contracts are written, if im correct, so that for the amount of energy the supplier sells to the green customers, the supplier will buy an equal amount of green energy from the market, thus creating a balance.

For the second quote, I was referring to electric being bought in batches - the energy used by the customers on green contracts must be equal to or less than the amount of green energy bought by the supplier, in order for the green contracts to be legit.

Does this make more sense?

And the final quote - The more people sign up to green energy, the more green energy will be produced to meet demand.