How do we increase investment in green energy generated in the UK

All electricity suppliers have a legal obligation to buy 8% of the electricity they supply to their customers from green sources.

When you sign up for Zero Carbon we will buy an additional 12% of all the energy we supply to you from green sources. This is in addition to our legal obligation of 8%.

The way we do this involves Renewable Obligation Certificates, or ROCs for short. A ROC is a digital certificate containing the details of exactly how a unit of energy was made. These ROCs can be traded separately to energy. For example, an energy supplier can buy ROCs to make up their energy shortfall produced from renewable sources if they don’t meet their legal obligation.

Why these actions increase investment in green energy generated in the UK?

When we buy the extra 12% of green sourced energy on your behalf, we ‘retire the ROCs’ we get with that energy, which means that we cannot use them to meet our legal obligation.

Since this leads to fewer ROCs in circulation, their value is increased. This should have the knock-on effect of encouraging more renewably sourced energy to be generated. A great result all round.

And this is in addition to purchasing a kWh from green sources for every kWh of electricity you use and supplying it to the national grid.