In praise of . . . ECOTRICITY

Yesterday the Guardian had to retract its claim that  the Big Six energy suppliers were to be investigated for "alleged collusion" [ in fixing their prices ].  No they aren't.  It's "tacit co-rdination" which is to be investigated.  Collusion is illegal, but,apparently, tacit co-ordination isn't.

So there you are. A nice reminder that Adam Smith's dictum of 1776:  People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices," remains highly relevant.

For many  years  I've been buying my electricity, and for a few years now my gas as well, from Ecotricity.  Our affable meter reader told me that, on his round, there were only two of us. The other I happen to know: he's a former Liberal Democrat colleague who's now prominent in the local Green Party.  However, the meter reader tells me that there are now  "one or two more" of us dotted about.

Originally the Ecotricity deal was that they would match the price of the lowest of the Big Six in the area and, of course, put more effort into building and obtaining their energy form renewable sources than the others.   Now the deal is even better: they undercut the Big Six on price while at the same time obtaining  over two thirds of their power from renewable sources.  The national average is only just over 10%.

And things will soon  get even better.  Ecotricity spends £265 per customer per year on building new sources of renewable energy.  Their nearest rival in these stakes is SSE, which spends less than £100.  The others lag even further behind. With this level of investment Ecotricity aims to be able to provide 100% Green Energy by 2015.

For more information see http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/

I assure readers I am not being paid by Econticity for this plug.  I also acknowledge that the information above  is from their own publicity, and am not so naive as to assume that it may not be just a teeny-weeny bit biased in their favour.

But transferring to Ecotiricty for all your energy supplies does seem to me to be a no-brainer.

If you do, and you quote RAFE-GBL7B I may get a voucher to spend at their Ectopia shop,www.ectopia.co.uk which, among other things, sells fairly traded food.