Selfsufficientish.com

Anyone can easily donate to or invest in one of these renewable energy schemes, which need to be funded by the end of November in order to beat the government cuts to renewables:

http://www.energydash.org/projects/

Not only will you be helping these individual projects, but the more that get funded, the more powerful the message to the government will be that the cuts are a bad idea!

Are any of those schemes 'Off Grid' or are they all 'Grid Tied'?

I am not a massive fan of grid tied systems. I agree it is better than non renewable energy generation but I would prefer to see more de-centralised, off grid systems that build local resiliency.

Paul

Hernaic Tom wrote:Anyone can easily donate to or invest in one of these renewable energy schemes

Anyone? Only those with money to spare!

Yes but it would be nice to think that those with money to spare did something more useful thought about how they used it.

Yes, it would be. And I would actually like to change to a renewable energy supplier, but haven't found one yet that accepts folk on pre-pay-meters - or doesn't charge them a big wack of money to change to "normal" payment methods! (Not my choice - council.)

See if you can get on Ovo ina - they say they do prepayment meters but they may not be in your area.

Thanks for that - not heard of them around here yet, but I'll find out! Anyway, I'd like to get rid of that bl**dy meter - it's more expensive than paying by direct debit, which I always used to do before, and never had a problem... But they automatically think that somebody on a low income, in a council house, can't be trusted with that. So they charge you more.

Have you checked it is the council and not the supplier who put it in. It may be that the previous tenant wasn't keeping up with their bills and so they were given the pre-pay meter. I know suppliers are reluctant to remove them because, as you said, they make more money out of them. But if it isn't council policy to have these things you should be able to get it removed - and possibly a refund.

Green Aura wrote:Have you checked it is the council and not the supplier who put it in. It may be that the previous tenant wasn't keeping up with their bills and so they were given the pre-pay meter. I know suppliers are reluctant to remove them because, as you said, they make more money out of them. But if it isn't council policy to have these things you should be able to get it removed - and possibly a refund.

Never thought of that. But the company's website said something about the cost of having it removed - I think it was more than £50. That's a lot more than I would save in one year by having it removed, as my usage is rather low... And since I never knew how much longer I would live here (never intended to stay this long), I just didn't bother.

Shall have to look into that! Thanks for all your comments, anyway.

ina wrote:Yes, it would be. And I would actually like to change to a renewable energy supplier, but haven't found one yet that accepts folk on pre-pay-meters - or doesn't charge them a big wack of money to change to "normal" payment methods! (Not my choice - council.)

I switched on a pre-pay meter system from British Gas to Ecotricity in Essex a few years ago. I expected them not to be able to support a pre-pay meter because Good Energy had previously told me that they couldn't, so I was pleasantly surprised when they said they could! I no longer live there, and I have changed providers to renewable suppliers at few addresses before this one, so I like to think that if the new tenants kept with the same supplier I have promoted the spread of renewable energy in my wake!

Ah - shall give them a try! Thank you!