Renewable energy: pay more as gas and oil prices increase

A few months ago, your Recruiting Officer discovered one of the more bizarre aspects of how completely and utterly the current UK Government doesn't believe in taking genuine, constructive action over climate change.

I use electricity in my home - no gas - and buy my power from a company called Good Energy. They provide energy from 100% renewable sources and cost a little bit more than dirty energy providers. Not a lot, I haven't even done the maths recently, however when I first switched to them it was maybe £100 a year more. In my book, this is a price worth paying as the environmental cost of dirty energy (using sensible True Cost Economics) is something we need to address.

In my own naive way, assuming some things to be run along the lines of common sense, I presumed that because I am paying a little more for renewable energy then as fossil fuel prices increase, renewable energy from supppliers will become relatively cheaper and therefore renewable energy will become more attractive - and so on and so forth until everybody wants renewable energy and the market provides it in a rather smooth and hopefully speedy transition.

No. Not in th UK at least. It seems it won't work like that because we trade electricity from legacy fossil fuels and renewable energy on the same market. This has a lot to do with things I don't understand very well, terms like 'baseload price' and 'electricity content', however it apparently means if the price rises, it rises for everybody.

Now, my electricity supplier tells me that the only way these problems can be overcome is if renewable power gains a larger proportion of the generation market and therefore can assert more control over price.

Aaaaaaaargh! But that's not going to happen if the price isn't allowed to become more competitive.

I think there is a hell of a lot wrong with the current iteration of the 'market economy' and here is yet another example of how when it should work, it doesn't, because the game is being skewed against renewables when we should, if anything, be trying to skew it further towards them.

So instead of being left to the market pure and simple to sort out a transition to more renewables, it is left up to people like me, who actually give a toss. People who pause and think every now and again where their electricity is coming from. Dare I say, people who probably have energy efficient light bulbs and turn things off when they're not using them. People who try to use energy responsibly. People aspiring to a smaller carbon footprint. In short, the kind of people who come way down the list of those, in the UK, accelerating our depletion of fossil fuels.

So because the market economy has brain-washed the vast majority into 'cheaper is best', it puts people like me in the minority. Which isn't helpful, is it? What chance do we have when a subject supposedly so high on the Government's hit-list is not given the opportunity it deserves?

Now, I know these things aren't enitirely up to the market anyway. I know we already have some Government involvement in the form of Renewable Obligations, which make all suppliers account for a percentage of renewable generation and/or pay a price, but it is problems like the one outlined here that are genuinely going to make a difference to what the population are prepared to support by voting with their available cash.

Now, once more, for the same reason, the price for my renewable energy is being increased again. And again I have to justify to myself and others the price is worth paying rather than buying cheaper, dirty energy. Like many, I don't earn a lot so I really do have to think about what I spend. Do we really want all the people who have committed to doing the 'right' thing to revert back simply because they can't afford it any more? Because they can't afford to subsidise the people who don't give a toss?

Intervention or not, we cannot afford to continue to allow dirty energy to be sold more cheaply than renewables. In true cost economic terms - in terms of our environment and sustainability, we cannot afford it. And once more our Government could be doing a lot more than paying lip-service and not rocking the boat too much by taking more positive action.