Saving the planet is a pretty good idea; you probably don’t need anyone to tell you that. But when economic times are as tough as they are at the moment, your number one priority may have to be saving money rather than spending too much time about being eco-friendly. It’s not that you don’t care about being green — it’s just that paying the bills is a rather more pressing matter. The ideal solution would be to find a way to get your power needs supplied without costing the Earth — in either sense of that phrase. So, what can you do to reach that shining prize of using both green and cheap electricity in your house?
Well, first of all, you’re in the right place, so give yourself a pat on the back for living in the UK. We have some of the best renewable energy resources of anywhere in the world. Being an island, Britain is surrounded by sea: wave power has been rather underused up until now, but the barrage that’s being proposed for the Severn Estuary may make a big difference there. Solar power has expanded hugely over the last few years, thanks to government grants for people wanting to install solar panels. Wind energy is a major growth industry, as those calmly twirling turbines will tell you.
The biggest step forward you can make, though, is to sign up with a company with experience and expertise in renewables. That’s where Ovo comes in. It was set up for a reason that you’re likely to find all too familiar: its founder was fed up with the brain-melting tariffs and conditions set by existing energy suppliers. He therefore set up Ovo with three main goals: making energy supply simpler, greener and cheaper. Yes, that’s right: all three at once. The upshot of all that is that going green with your electricity provision now makes perfect sense financially as well as ethically.
Ovo offers two plans. Not two hundred or two thousand; just two. With one, you get 15% of your electricity from renewables — still much more than the UK average — and with the other, you get all of it from renewable sources. Pick that one and you’ll find yourself as green as green can be, without having to pay through the nose to be that way. As you’d expect, there are other environmentally sensitive touches as well, such as automatic paperless billing, as well as a customer service team that actually provides great customer service. You wonder why some of the bigger energy suppliers didn’t think of that one.
It’s obvious to everyone that energy usage is changing, and that it’s going to change a lot more in the future as fossil fuel supplies diminish. If you’re ahead of the curve and jump aboard the green electricity train now, you’ll have a nice, comfortable journey and avoid the rush later on. Renewables have been around a long time: there were hydroelectric power stations in the UK over a century ago. Renewable energy isn’t just some fashionable gimmick: it’s the future of electricity provision in the UK, and the world. Feel like living in the clean, green future? You know what to do!