Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The cost of energy is going through the roof, mainly due to the rising cost of gas. Curiously, several energy suppliers that claim to offer 100% renewable electricity are also raising their prices. How are companies that are supposedly 100% renewable exposed to the volatility in the gas market? At least part of the answer has to do with the fact that they are not 100% renewable at all. For that reason, I will talk about greenwashing by electricity suppliers in this country. When a person signs up with a 100% renewable supplier, he or she is probably expecting that his or her electricity will be generated from wind, solar or hydro power but in reality, 100% renewable involves suppliers getting electricity from whatever dirty fossil fuel source they like and buying pieces of paper to offset the non-renewable electricity. These are called guarantees of origin. One guarantee of origin corresponds to a megawatt hour of renewable electricity. It is a financial document. If a supplier wants 100% renewable electricity, it simply buys from a producer that offers the guarantees alongside the sales. It seems straightforward, but it is not because there does not seem to be a link between the physical electricity and the guarantees. An energy supplier offering 100% renewable can simply buy the guarantees from anywhere in Europe but the actual electricity delivered will still come from the power plants in Ireland. For example, a consumer on a 100% renewable tariff could be getting coal-fired power from Moneypoint. On paper, it will read as 100% renewable because the supplier has bought a guarantee from as far away as Greece, regardless of the fact that there is no interconnector between Greece and Ireland. It is this unbundling from actual usage that lets companies greenwash dirty electricity.

It is a hugely damaging practice because people have a right to know where their energy is coming from. If they want to avoid fossil fuels, there is no way of knowing which energy company does not use them. Several of the 18 suppliers whose fuel mixes were disclosed this week by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, claim to be 100% renewable but this is simply not true. Customers are being misled. This system disincentivises real investment in renewable energy. Why would a supplier bother investing in actual renewable energy when it can invest buttons in pieces of paper in order to claim to be 100% renewable? It can cost as little as 30 cent to greenwash a family's annual consumption of 3 MWh. Some generators enjoy the trickle of income but according to the UK regulator Ofgem, there is no evidence that 100% renewable tariffs materially support the production of renewable energy over and above what is already in place so it is bad for consumer confidence. We know we need a lot more renewable energy in this country but in many parts, its reputation is already in tatters so playing games with bits of paper brings the renewable energy industry into further disrepute.

Big tech companies like Amazon are also buying these guarantees of origin to cover the non-renewable energy they use in Ireland while their web services support logistics for greater and faster extraction of fossil fuels. These practices are also bad for those suppliers that are actually making a stand and buying more from renewables. Regardless of what efforts they make to buy actual electricity from renewable sources, there will always be others that will simply greenwash by buying these certificates. This is a murky problem that has to do with how energy suppliers are taking advantage of loopholes in the way they report their annual emissions in the fuel mix disclosure. There is a dire need for clear definitions and transparency. What is the Government going to do to address this in the interests of transparency for customers?