Why the university doesn't run on green electricity

Two years ago People and Planet members were running a Green Electricity campaign on campus, trying to persuade the university to switch to a 'green electricity' supplier, and one of the posts here from the fall highlighted how due to a change in supplier, the university was recieving a marginally higher proportion of its electricity from renewable sources.

The reason why the university as a whole hasn't made the switch to green electricity is financial, and goes back to a government mechanism called the Climate Change Levy. This is a tax of 0.43p for every kilowatt of non-renewable energy that is consumed by non-domestic users. UWA does not directly purchase its own energy supplies, but does so through the Energy Consortium, a group of HE institutions who procure their supplies together.

The mixed-usage of electricity at the university, for residential and business purposes, however, means that UWA is liable for different levels of the CCL. For instance, 'domestic' consumption of electricity is only charged a 5% VAT rate, whereas 'business' use is charged at 17.5%. Supplies that only attract a 5% VAT rate are also exempt from the CCL. When the contract to supply electricity was negotiated last autumn, the cheapest tender was recieved from a supplier (Scottish & Southern) that did not offer variable percentages of green electricity supplies, thereby preventing the consortium from choosing a green electricity option. I have been told that choosing the green option would have cost UWA £29,900 more than the current not-very-green option.

For domestic/personal consumers, last December the National Consumer Council produced a report into green electricity tariffs that wades through the jargon and different concepts involved. Its main guidance to consumers is to be wary of the claims that electricity companies make, as these are largely self-regulated, and it also provides a fairly accessible, but detailed assessment of the various options that the electricity companies provide.