Posts by Gareth Ward
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What do the "retailers" actually do, apart from charging a premium for their "service"?.
Retailers are there because the alternative would see us all shafted (even more) for our electricity - it's a realisation that there will only ever be one set of "the wires" in your area and leaving the owner of them to charge you for the power they deliver wouldn't be a recipe for lean pricing.
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Ben and Kyle re "accounting trick" - the more generous interpretation is that you are simply buying offsets for the emissions of your electricity usage (this is true with Green Power Company at least).
But yes the incentive-to-clean-generation is not really part of the equation. -
To quote myself: If they retail less than they generate "cleanly" then they claim that they need no offset for any of their retailed electricity
This provides incentive for Meridan themselves to increase their clean generation I suppose.
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Ben - with Meridian it's the latter. If they retail less than they generate "cleanly" then they claim that they need no offset for any of their retailed electricity, effectively claiming they have only retailed "their" generation. Thus dirtying the remainder of the pool I suppose, yes.
Green Power Company offsets the average emission intensity of the entire power pool.
Neither directly increases the amount of at-source clean generation, but the Green Power Company is at least increasing the amount of "net clean" generation. If that makes sense
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In an attempt at visual:
Generator A (hydro)+Generator B (coal)
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Big pool o electricity
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Your house (billed to you by retailer)
There is no concept of getting "electrons" from A rather than B into your house. So all they can do is offset the emissions of "B electrons" (percentage of generation) that end up in your house.I'm trying to think through the incentive to generation that greater purchase of "offset units" carries but can't see it (there's no difference to the generator in terms of their sell price and they have no visibility of how many units have been offset).
I guess pressure from retailers (who in some cases are the same people) to avoid their offset purchases may come into it. -
Sorry Kyle, I don't quite follow your question.
- Meridian does an offsetting of their retail to generation - they generate only using non-emitting sources (hydro, wind) so if they retail less than they generate then I believe they claim they have zero emissions for retail energy. Bit of a loophole in some ways I suppose.
- The Green Power Company takes the better way of working out an annual emissions per kwh of ALL power generated in the NZ system and offsetting that for you.
There is no direct link between "green" units purchased and back-end generation (retail and generation being very separate beasts that are pooled in the middle).
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You don't ever purchase "renewable" electricity - you purchase "green" or "carbon neutral" electricity.
When you're doing that, the retailer is purchasing offsets against the emissions involved across the electricity lifecycle - i.e. they work out the average emission intensity in a given kwh (being x% of generation in NZ has emissions of y) and offset that.The claim that "you can't guarantee you're getting green electrons" is a red herring and is never actually claimed by Meridian etc
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Drinnan - a taxpayer funded TV news presenter fronting an advertising campaign for Meridian Energy
Jeez Russell, it's not always about you. He's clearly talking about Jeremy Wells...
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Sour Pakehas confectionery range? Vanilla and resentment flavoured!
Baaaaaaahahahahahaha
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That Editing the Herald piece was pretty funny, Tom. My favourites:
I must add:
Bruce f (Te Kuiti): I find the terms English toffee, Scottish shortbread, Welsh rarebit, Irish cream, Kiwifruit, Australian Coon cheese, etc., all very offensive! Come off it you P.C. clowns. Wait until my mate Eskimo Joe hears about this.
He's right. I lived in Glasgow for quite a while, and if you call a Scottish guy in the street Scottish, he will stab you in the mouth.