In reality there is no such thing as ‘green’ electricity if you get your electricity out of the national grid (refer my earlier blog post ‘Where does my power come from?’). Power taken from the national grid is produced from a variety of generation sources, some of which emit carbon into the atmosphere. In practice, irrespective of whom you buy your power from, the source of the power you use will not change.
More and more consumers are becoming more aware of the link between electricity consumption, carbon emissions and climate change. However, the whole ‘climate change’ industry is dominated by complex jargon and confusing terminology. We are tying to cut through all of that confusion and offer our customers practical options to reduce their effect on climate change.
There are three broad actions that everyone can take in relation to consumption of resources generally, and also specifically with electricity:
1. Reduce consumption, where possible.
2. Consume renewable, non-polluting resources.
3. Offset carbon emissions.
Powershop offers the information, tools and products for customers to adopt any or all of these actions that suit their lifestyle and budget.
Reducing consumption
Powershop provides simple and understandable information that allows customers to understand exactly how much power they are using each day, and immediately see the benefit of changing the way in which they use power or investments they have made to reduce consumption (eg. insulation, heat pumps).
Your unit balance shows you how much power you have left, how much you are using each day and how long your balance will last you. You can enter your meter reading whenever you like to track your usage and make sure your balance is accurate. We also have other charts and information that allow you to monitor your consumption over time.
Power from Renewable sources
Meridian Energy generates electricity using only renewable resources and has two CarboNZerocertTM products available for purchase within Powershop.
The certification process requires that the emissions associated with the generation and retail of the amount of electricity sold are measured, subject to management plans and offset according to the carboNZero standard. This does not mean the emissions associated with your power consumption have been offset because it is not possible to track electricity flows through the grid, and because there is no linkage between who you buy your power from and where the power you use is actually produced.
You can buy these products to show your support for Meridian as a generator that generates using only renewable resources, rather than to offset emissions.
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Meridian also run ‘specials’ from time-to-time, notably when their lakes are full of water.
For more information on Meridian’s products see our Products & Pricing page.
Offsetting Carbon Emissions
If you really want to help fight climate change you can ‘offset’ the emissions associated with the production or consumption of your power using carbon offsets.
A ‘carbon offset’ is produced by projects that either absorb carbon from the atmosphere (eg. forests) or offset emissions from another source (eg. a windfarm that reduces the amount of production from a coal fired power station). There is a plethora of international standards for carbon offsets with a range of different criteria associated with them. A key feature of all offsets though, is that they must be ‘additional’ – that the project or initiative producing the offset would not have occurred anyway without the revenue from sale of the carbon credits.
Powershop currently has two suppliers who provide carbon offsets with their electricity products.
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PowerKiwi Limited supplies power under the brand name ‘The Green Power Company’
All purchases of The Green Power Company product are accompanied by a offsets verified to the ‘Voluntary Carbon Standard‘.
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Airshed supplies two different power products, one intended primarily for residential consumers, and another targeted at businesses who participate in a certification programme such as Landcare’s CarboNZero programme. Both Airshed products have offsets verified to ‘Gold Standard‘ that meet other sustainability criteria in addition to offsetting carbon. This Gold Standard is supported by environmental organisations such as Green Peace and WWF.
For more information on ‘The Green Power Company’ and Airshed products, see our Products and Pricing page.
Tags: carbon, Climate Change, green, offsets
Lifestyle changes are good, but they can only slow emissions growth slightly, they will not reduce emissions. Personal lifestyle changes can only have an impact of a few percent at most. We cannot ignore the other 95 percent of the problem. Some have suggested that we can forget about caps and just focus on behavioural changes, which is insane.
http://selfdestructivebastards.blogspot.com/2009/10/voluntary-lifestyle-changes.html
October 28th, 2009 at 4:40 am@Canada Guy:
I agree completely. Fighting climate change has a number of ‘battle fronts’ – lifestyle changes, and changes to individual consumption patterns is important in its own right, but also to signal to producers that they need to find more sustainable ways of making their products, whether that is electricity or the food we eat, or the cars we drive.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:34 amI have investigated both sides of the global warming/CO2 debate, and have come down firmly on the side that says CO2 (aka plant food) is not a problem. I am not the least bit interested in footprints or offsets, and this is actually a disincentive for me to switch to Powershop. When it comes to power, I just want the cheapest, most reliable option available.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pm@Sceptical Guy:
The great thing about Powershop is that you have choice. You are entitled to form your own views on climate change. If you form a view that CO2 emissions are an issue and you want to do something about it you can buy electricity products with carbon offsets attached. If on the other hand you have a different view (or you can’t afford to buy carbon offset products) then Powershop has cheap power too. The choice is entirely yours.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:27 pmThanks for your prompt response Ari. We have decided to give Powershop a go. Provided it works out as cheap as claimed, and provided carbon offsets STAY optional, we won’t change.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:45 pm@Sceptical Guy:
Thanks, and welcome aboard. And we definitely have no plans to make offsets mandatory – our promise is to give our customers choice.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:47 pmThree things you notice when you enter a greenhouse: warm, wet and higher CO2 concentrations.
Why don’t the greenhouse gas (GHG) protocols discuss water vapour as a contributor to global warming ?
Given the high heat capacity of water vapour it is f-a-r more effective at causing or attenuating a shift in global temperature. See Investigate Magazine for more info. Yes, earth temperatures are rising but they are cyclical and “scheduled” to (long story, no room) and antropogenic causes are unlikely to produce more than a fraction of a degree shift in global temperatures. Attributing climate change to anthropogenic GHG emmissions is like saying tipping a cupful of water into Lake Taupo has an impact on lake levels — true but infinitesimal.
Saving power is good and reducing GHG emissions is also good but its effectiveness in reducing the impact of global warming is very unlikely. Thanks for your site and the opportunities it allows for power savings.
September 16th, 2010 at 7:00 pm@ReadTheFinePrint:
Thanks for your feedback and contribution to this discussion. I don’t proclaim to be a climate change or global warming expert, and I am aware there are many arguments about the causes of global warming, and what actions can be taken to curtail it. However, in my mind these arguments are to some extent not that important. To me GHG emissions largely arise from the use of non-renewable natural resources – if you can reduce GHG emissions you will be reduce the use of non-renewable resources in the process. You may be correct, these actions may have a small impact in the bigger scheme of things, but they are “no regrets” actions, and they just make sense.
Further, at a much more practical level, reduction in use will save money. That too is a “no regrets” action.
September 16th, 2010 at 8:17 pm