Time for me to switch to Clean British Energy

James Dubrey

01 June 2012

I can put it off no longer. I've bought the shell of a flat and now I need to make it nice. By nice, I mean with a kitchen and a bathroom. Maybe some carpets. Hey, some curtains would be good seeing as the sun's popping up so early these days.

First step - call the BBC. Devastation follows as they tell me that Changing Rooms was scrapped years ago and they don't have a number for 'Handy' Andy. I stop short of asking about Bob the Builder's availability.

So the tedious cycle of booking builders, waiting for builders, chasing builders and being let down by builders begins. With that safely in hand I turn my attention to some of the admin around home ownership.

I change my eBay details and my address with the various online record and bike shops I use. What else? Banks (boo), charities I support (yay) the weird newsletter I get from my dad's mate who is obsessed with tractors (I have to, lest my ex-flatmates think I'm a tractor-fancier), utilities (groan).

I'm not surprised to learn that the electricity at my flat has previously been supplied by British Gas. They're the biggest of the Big Six although I wonder how much of that is due to the millions of people who have never switched their supplier.

Well not me. I'm not sticking with them as they're the antithesis of Clean British Energy. They've invested the joint least of the Big Six in renewables; have just announced that they expect international gas prices to increase customers' bills up by around £50 before the year's out and they don't even offer a green tariff.

There are plenty of incentives to switch and some great firms offering clean energy from renewables, but what would it take for you to switch to a green energy supplier?

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