Switching To Renewable Energy Is Soooo Easy

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Yesterday I decided to do something about switching my electricity supplier. I’d already decided to keep the prepayment meter because while I’m still struggling to pay off my debts, I’d rather not receive any more surprise bills and with the cost or energy rising quickly these days, that could well happen. It would have been nice if I’d been able to save a bit by switching too but my main concern was that I wanted to be supplied with green energy – the renewable stuff that comes from the myriad wind farms that have popped up around the country – and not the stuff that British Gas supply me with.

First I went to moneysavingexpert.com to see which of the comparison sites Martin Lewis recommended. I followed the link and landed on Energy Helpline. Now this is an incredibly easy site to use, it shows you exactly how much you can save by switching to any of the companies that supply gas or electricity in your area and you make your application to switch online. Really, believe me... I do not like filling out forms but this one was dead simple.

I chose to switch to The National Trust Green Energy Scheme even though it would actually cost me an estimated £6 per year more at the current rate. Ok, so I’m hard up and trying to save money but it’s important to me that I have green energy and the difference isn't enough to lose sleep over.

Apparently I’ll receive a confirmation letter from nPower (who The National Trust are partnering with on this project) within 14 days and the switch will go live within two months. I thought the process would be quicker than that but ok, I can live with it.

Also, by choosing The National Trust instead of signing up with nPower directly, nPower will donate £15 a year to the trust to invest in low and zero carbon initiatives. I don't see wind farms as the final solution (is anything ever?) but they're what we have now and are better, in my opinion, than the alternatives. If everybody signed up then I doubt there would be enough to go round but it's a useful solution while we look for other ways of producing clean electricity.

If you’ve been thinking of switching suppliers but haven’t got around to it yet, I highly recommend Energy Helpline because it’s so easy and if Martin says it's good, it has to be good :-)

Sharon J

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