Big Six energy supplier E.ON will become the UK’s biggest renewable power firm from Tuesday as bosses revealed they would only provide electricity from renewable generation for its 3.3 million customers, the company announced.
Bosses said they are responding to calls from households for suppliers to do more to address climate change and be more sustainable.
Around half of all the electricity going into homes signed up with E.ON will be generated by the German supplier’s own renewable sites or via direct agreements with independent renewable generators.
READ MORE: Plan to make Scotland a green energy superpower, thanks to hydrogen
The rest will be from traditional sources, such as gas and coal-fired power stations, but will be offset by E.ON buying Renewable Energy Certificates, which guarantee the equivalent amount of renewable electricity was generated to the amount supplied.
E.ON currently has five offshore windfarms, 16 onshore sites, and three biofuel facilities in the UK.
It also has deals in place with 16 other renewable sites across the country.
E.ON UK chief executive Michael Lewis said: “Climate change is the defining issue of our era, and one that energy customers are increasingly concerned about.
“We believe large-scale action can make significant change possible and we’re committed to playing a leading role and setting an example for others to follow, that’s why we’re providing all of our residential customers with 100% renewable electricity as standard – a change at a scale never seen before in Britain.”
The Big Six, which also includes British Gas, SSE, Npower, EDF and Scottish Power, have all been slow to introduce renewable tariffs to customers.
READ MORE: How Orkney reinvented the future with hydrogen
Most “green” tariffs tend to attract a premium with the Big Six, but E.ON has said there will be no extra cost associated with the changes announced on Tuesday.
However Scottish Power, which also has a significant power generation division, did announce last year that it would only generate electricity from wind – selling off its last gas and hydro stations to Drax last year for £702 million.
E.ON added that a recent survey found 61% of the British public said they would be likely to change to a renewable tariff, if reasonably priced.
Around 77% said they were concerned with climate change, and 79% said they could improve their own sustainable behaviour.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article