What is Renewable?

Ecotricity is harnessed from natural sources, like the wind, the sun and water, that don't pollute and don't contribute to climate change.

We call these Deep Green, because they're the ultimate in clean electricity generation. They don't involve any burning and offer a pollution-free, endless source of electricity.

Creating new Deep Green sources is crucial in the fight against climate change. And that's where we come in. We're building 500MW of new Deep Green energy by 2010. This is a significant boost to green electricity capacity in the UK and will have a major positive impact on the environment; reducing Carbon Dioxide, other gas emissions and pollution. Every unit of green electricity that we make directly replaces electricity normally generated from conventional polluting sources.

There are other sources of green electricity. We call these Pale Green, because in most cases they involve some form of burning and there is some associated environmental impact. Examples of Pale Green sources include sewage, landfill gas and biomass. The first two provide a non-intermittent and comparatively cheap source of power and in most cases enable significant greenhouse gas savings compared to conventional sources. Pale Green sources helped us to kick start the UK's green electricity market place and to get us where we are today, but they are no longer a feature of our generation.

Our focus is on building new Deep Green capacity: the most important factor in reducing the threat of climate change.

» Back to top