CO2-operation with electricity labelling?
February 1st 2008

In the same way that white goods are labelled with an A-G energy efficiency rating and buildings will be under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive Richard Tarboton, head of energy and carbon management at BT argues that we should not only have a CO2 label on our electricity supply but that we should be able to specify to our supplier what we want in our generation mix. "It is on fridges and crisps but not on the largest carbon purchase you make [electricity]," commented Tarboton at the recent British Energy Talk Power Conference.The system would work something like the other labelling systems in existence with renewable energy being A-rated and perhaps nuclear being B-rated, gas-fired good quality CHP being C-rated, gas D-rated and so on with coal being the worst.The mix that you specify would determine the carbon intensity of your electricity mix. For full details on this story read Insight on page 8.

The theory is that the demand and inevitable shortage of supply for A-rated electricity would push the price up and this in turn would make it profitable and more investment would be directed into generating A-rated supply. Although there exists a renewable obligation for suppliers the premium is not enough to drive generators beyond their statutory obligations.This is the market push towards green generation,Tarboton contends that labelling will be the consumer pull.

Following a discussion of the issue in our email news story comments received ranged from “I think this is a great idea...it’s time the energy providers realised that they are in a consumer led market”, to “Are the generators not the ones most able to do this? Looking at the profits achieved by the likes of Shell, and then comparing that to the non-profit status of our charity, I cannot help but wonder why the onus is on the ultimate consumer.Why should it be down to us to try and convince the supplier to do the right thing?” Do you think there is merit in the idea, can it work when electricity companies are forced to go to the spot market to make up short falls in generation, how can the whole thing be easily verified and validated? Do you think that such a system would create the necessary price differential to stimulate the construction of renewable generation?

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