Business energy contracts can encompass a wide range of things. The bottom line matters, of course, not least after costs soared due to the price shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, for many businesses, there are good reasons to work with a renewable energy broker.
This may not be true for everyone, but for some companies, there are great benefits in having contracts that use renewable energy. If your customer base is one that is largely or wholly eco-friendly, for example, because this is in line with the kind of products you sell or services you provide, this is an obvious step to take.
Other cases in point may not be so obvious. For example, a restaurant or hotel, especially one in a rural area, may use a lot of local produce, reducing the carbon footprint of getting food from farm to fork. This concept will appeal to many people, but it can be strengthened further by being able to tell customers your energy is also green.
The same will also be true for firms that use a lot of recycled material or produce recyclable items. In each case, your energy use can persuade sceptics that you are not indulging in ‘greenwashing’, but walking the talk.
Is Renewable The Only Definition Of Green?
A key question is what now constitutes green energy. To some, this may seem to be a question with an obvious answer, one in which fossil fuels are replaced by wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy.
To an extent, this is accurate, with Britain’s last coal-fired power station closing last year, whereas as recently as 2006, coal was responsible for more than a third of UK electricity production and gas nearly 40 per cent. At the time, only four per cent of our electricity came from renewables.
Since then, things have changed drastically. Not only is coal no longer in the equation, but zero-carbon sources overtook fossil fuels in 2019 and by the end of 2023 were producing a majority of Britain’s electricity.
This might make it seem like the business of having green contracts is simply a matter of accepting the inevitable, as this is the direction everything is going at speed. However, the elephant in this room is nuclear energy. This is classed as zero carbon, but environmentalists have long been divided over it.
The Nuclear Debate
On the one hand, any power produced by nuclear fission instead of burning coal, oil, or gas represents a reduction in carbon emissions. However, others point to the risks of radioactivity, especially after famous major incidents like Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011).
This is particularly pertinent because with most of Britain’s nuclear reactors close to the end of their working lives, the question has arisen about how, or whether, to replace them. At least one new full-scale nuclear power station (Sizewell C) is getting government backing, but these are very expensive and time-consuming to build. For that reason, much faith is now being placed in another innovation in nuclear technology – small reactors.
The government has just signed a deal with Rolls-Royce to construct the first of these, which will be much faster to deliver than large power plants and also less costly. This could, it is hoped, alleviate the risk that the decommissioning of old nuclear plants will leave Britain struggling to meet its energy needs in a time of transition.
With ministers planning to triple the UK’s nuclear power output by 2050, it is clear that nuclear is envisioned as having a significant role to play in helping meet net zero targets. But what happens when companies want to sign contracts for renewable energy?
Ensuring You Have The Choice
Firms may certainly want to have a choice between zero-carbon energy supplies that may include nuclear alongside renewables, while excluding gas. But a genuinely renewable contract will, by definition, exclude nuclear.
Some may argue that claims of a major ecological threat from nuclear power are overblown, that Fukushima used old technology (40-year-old air-cooled reactors that were unreachable during a tsunami after a large earthquake of the kind that doesn’t happen in Britain), while Chernobyl was a combination of incompetence and obsolete Soviet technology.
Indeed, it is reasonable to suggest that nuclear safety has improved, as would be the case with any form of technology, not least due to the lessons that past accidents have taught.
Nonetheless, this argument may not cut much ice with some consumers. For that reason, if you want to work with a broker on a green energy deal, you can be assured that it will be all about renewables. The only nuclear involved will be the fusion taking place 93 million miles away to send heat and light towards the Earth and power up solar panels.
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