New electricity supplier for Makerspace? Discuss here

From our latest bill, for November. We move to ‘variable rates’ from 28/12/17 when our contract expires.

Also, they’re quite good at sourcing green energy:

@Calum_Nicoll

Great thanks for this Dermot.

I have done some research:

Based on a projected usage of 17000kWh/Year:

Best value supplier is utilita, on their term 2 tarriff, with a day price of 11.63400p/ kWh. (For the purposes of quote I assumed all our electricity was consumed in day as I assumed we don’t have a day/night meter - if we do though that’s great - if the R1 and R2 are day and night the savings will be even greater).
Night electricity is 9.262p/kWh.
Standing Charge is 27.927p/day

This means assuming all electricity charged at day rate, our current bill would be £180.06 ex VAT - £216 inc VAT - or assuming R1/R2 are day/night equivalent - £209.16 inc vat.

Compared to our current usage, this represents a saving of £49/month - or roughly the cost of a TIG welder/year.

What next - should I call and arrange it?

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Good job!!!

Did ecotricity come up well? All their energy is green. I’m on their domestic and they are cheap and customer services is amazing… And I don’t often say that.

Thanks, we do need to know the source of the electricity of course, it’s apples and pears otherwise.

EDIT: for clarity I think we need to be looking at 100% renewable energy, then also look at energy efficiency.

I don’t see why we need to be looking at renewable sources - if reducing CO2 emissions/making the space carbon neutral is the aim (and I wasn’t aware it was) then we can accomplish this far cheaper by offsetting.

By far cheaper - we can get enough CO2 offset to offset the entire electricity bill for £50 instead of paying £600 to go with a more expensive renewable supplier.

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Buy carbon credits?

Yes - 17000kWH has a footprint of about 8 tonnes CO2.

When I last looked at carbon credits they didn’t seem to have a great reputation. I get that they reduce emissions, but does that demonstrably help the expansion of renewables?

I think if we want to help the expansion of renewables then that cash should be spent on buying a cnc or other equipment - not on an uncompetitive source of electricity.

Makerspacers are a breeding ground for incubating renewable projects etc…

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if were looking at an offset, wouldn’t one of these sponsored tree planting schemes be better ? https://treesforcities.org/ for instance

I must admit, i’m not convinced on the "Green " electricity schemes helping especially when British Gas, NPower and a couple of the other big boys are claiming Green credentials too.

Courty

Sorry @Calum_Nicoll I agree with @dermot on this, Makerspace has always used renewable energy suppliers because we’ve wanted to try to be as green as we can, thats why First Mile was choose as our waste service because they recycle more than most companies we looked at.

We need to vote with our feet by taking our business to companies who actually provide renewable energy, and put their money where their mouth is.

It’s interesting that @afshind suggests Ecotricity because they were who I would have suggested too, they’re a medium size UK business trying to make change in the world through renewables, lobbying and investing their revenue in new projects.

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Something has come up with i’ve flagged with the @directors that may mean we can’t change suppliers after all, so I’ve sent them the details for review, so folks should probably hold off working on this until @dermot updates us.

I say that we should be as green as possible

This is a problem with ‘green tariffs’ – with most of them there’s not much to prove that they lead to any more renewable capacity as I think all utilities are obliged to buy a proportion of renewables…

However: Ecotricity as a renewable energy generator/investor are a bit different, and seem like a natural fit for us.

@unknowndomain has alluded to an issue, but I think it’s surmountable.

More tomorrow.

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I asked ecotricity for a quote…summary figures, split is based on existing bill posted aboveFixed SME Elec and Gas 2016_03_09_Business_TCs_web.pdf (497.0 KB)
:

Annually:
Standing charge = £139.72
16.45% of total elec at night = 2797kWh @ 10.74p = £300.41
83.45% of total elec during day = 14203kWh @ 15.38p = £2184.42

Total per month = £218.71, saving £40 a month on current supplier.

ecotricity profits go back into building their own renewable energy sources like wind farms.

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is that for a Day/Night tariff then ?

We do have a ‘digital 3 phase meter’ in the space but they would need to check if its Day/Night compatible or replace it.
Quote looks quite competitive though !

Courty

Yes it’s day and night rate.

I gave the meters reg number, begins with E on our existing bill. The ecotricity guy was then able to pull up our address and the meter type and provided their rates.

They only provided the day and night rates per kwh, I extrapolated the new monthly and annual costs from last year’s usage.

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Is that inclusive of vat?

The suppliers I spoke to all said it wouldn’t make sense for us to get a day and night rate, as night starts at 00:00 and most of our usage is ‘day’ usage, thats reflected in those unit prices @afshind reported…

10.74p is cheaper, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that the day rate 15.38p which we use more of is more expensive than the single rate which varies fro 11-14p depending on suppliers. Overall it would work out more expensive.

Good point. No exc VAT