Best green energy supplier

By switching to a green energy supplier you are helping to support the development of green energy generation. However not all green tariffs and green energy companies offer the same hence part of the reason why there is a price difference.

If you want to switch to green energy then you need to decide if you want to make the biggest difference by paying a bit more for your energy or making some difference and actually paying less than you are now for your gas and electricity.

100% Renewable Energy Suppliers

Energy suppliers promoting green energy are more common with many utilities, especially the smaller providers offering 100% renewable electricity as standard.

Renewable electricity generated in the UK is allocated an REGO certificate for each megawatt hour (MWh) which can then be purchased by electricity suppliers to account for the renewable electricity they supply to customers.

It means that if a certificate is purchased by the suppliers offering renewable electricity then that electricity will have been generated and fed into the grid.

Suppliers can claim they offer 100% renewable electricity by buying REGOs but then by the actual electricity from a gas fired power station rather than from a wind farm or solar farm.

The cheapest green tariffs are generally offered by suppliers that rely on REGO certificates alone. Whilst the tariffs are more affordable and in some cases cheaper than non green tariffs they are not as 'Green' as tariffs from suppliers that have a direct relationship with green energy generators or generate green energy themselves.

However any renewable energy tariff is better than one that isn't because REGO guarantees that the renewable electricity has been generated and at least gives consumers the option of renewable electricity where they cannot afford truly green energy.

Cheapest 100% Renewable energy suppliers

The cheapest energy tariffs that are backed by Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin (REGO) certificates are from suppliers such as Hub Energy (formerly Gulf Gas and Power) who currently have the cheapest green tariff costing £78 a month and also includes 100% offset gas as well as renewable electricity.

Other low cost renewable tariffs are from suppliers such as People's Energy, Goto Energy, Outfox the Market, Utility Point, OVO Energy, Octopus and Bulb.

It's by no means a fully inclusive list but as prices and offers change over time it's better to do an energy comparison to get the current rates and you have the option to filter suppliers to show just those that offer 100% renewable energy.

Best Overall Green Energy Supplier

The best overall green energy tariff is Good Energy and their 'Fixed Duration' tariff. Good Energy is a leader and advocate for renewable energy in the UK and their Fixed Duration tariff offer a good balance between making a difference and cost.

Green Energy UK and their Dual Fuel EKOenergy are worth a mention as a runner up. Green Energy UK are all about sustainability and go that one step further to provide transparency. The cost of their tariff meant they come second to Good Energy.

Best mid priced Green Energy Supplier

I've picked Bulb's Vari Fair tariff as the best mid priced green tariff. It's a balance between making a difference and being able to afford to pay that bit extra. Bulb have a mixture of buying generation certificates, offsetting and having some direct involvement in green energy generation.

Second to Bulb are Tonik Energy's Zero Carbon (1 Year) v1 tariff offering green electric and offset gas at a reasonable price.

Best budget Green Energy Supplier

Greenwashed tariffs are better than dirty tariffs, at least they are heading in the right direction. The budget green tariffs dominate the cheaper end of the market and are cheaper than dirty energy so you are going to save yourself some money too.

Our pick is the Birch tariff from Green (green.energy) which buys RGGO and REGO certificates to match the renewable gas and electricity they sell to customers and the price is very good. I'd advocate switching to Green if you want to make some difference without it costing more.

Cheapest green energy supplier

If you want the absolute cheapest price and a nod to sustainability then Green Energy UK's Green SuperPower (1 Year) v5 + Free Boiler Service tariff is a must. In fact you are likely to reduce the cost of your energy by switching to this tariff from a similarly green tariff or all non-green tariffs. If you are unsure and on a tight budget or just a penny pincher then this tariff is for you.

Take a look at the current cheapest green energy suppliers offering the best green energy deals. Most of the consistently low cost energy companies have 100% renewable energy with a mixture of no exit fee fixed energy deals and variable rate tariffs.

Green Energy Suppliers

Our table lists some of the UK energy companies where a majority of their tariffs supply renewable energy. This can be from the supplier purchasing REGO certificates, buying direct from renewable energy generators or generating the renewable energy themselves.

We also list energy suppliers that offer carbon offsetting whereby they spend money to offset the carbon generated from your gas usage.

Supplier	Tariff	Electricity	Gas	Yearly cost £
Green	Birch	100% REGO	100% RGGO	870.18
Octopus	Super Green Octopus	100% REGO	100% Offset	965.36
Bulb	Vari-Fair	100% REGO/Direct	100% RGGO/Direct/Offset	918.52
Green Energy UK	Dual Fuel Sparkling 2022	100%	100%	1382.50
Green Energy UK	Dual Fuel EKOenergy	100%	100%	1433.10
Tonik Energy UK	Green SuperPower (1 Year) v5 + Free Boiler Service	100% REGO	0%	780.60
Tonik Energy UK	Zero Carbon (1 Year) v1	100% REGO	100% Offset	969.74
Tonik Energy UK	Greenest Future (2 Year) v1	100% REGO	10% RGGO/90% Offset	1039.92
Ecotricity	Green Electricity + Green Gas	20% Generated 80% REGO	100% Offset	1295.15
Good Energy	Fixed duration	100% Direct	90% Offset 10% Biogas	1,094.00
Good Energy	Flexible duration	100% Direct	90% Offset 10% Biogas	1,389.00

Octopus Energy

All of Octopus Energy's tariffs use 100% renewable electricity with their cheapest tariff 'Octopus 12M Fixed' costing £917.48 or £76.46 a month. If you pay more with their 'Super Green Octopus' tariff costing £965.36 or £80.45 per month your gas usage is offset through carbon reducing projects with their partner Renewable World. This means they invest in projects around the world which result in less carbon dioxide being produced.

So far, we’ve teamed up with more than 73 renewable generators around the country to provide over 110 gigawatt hours of sun, wind and hydro power to our customers.

Green

Green is a newer supplier having been around since 2019 and as the name suggests they are a renewable energy supplier. They have 100% renewable electricity (through REGO's or Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin) with the option for carbon neutral gas through the purchase of RGGO's (Renewable Gas Guarantees of Origin).

Green has a cheap green variable tariff 'Cherry Blossom' which is currently (June 2020) the 8th cheapest tariff costing £811.77 a year or £67.65 a month. This is 100% renewable electricity from REGO certificates with non renewable gas.

To upgrade to green gas through RGGO's your yearly cost would be £870.18 or about £72.51 per month so about £5 a month more to be totally green.

In relation to our Gas for our Birch tariff, we buy Carbon Neutral certificates from around the UK and the world which certify 1 tonne of CO2 has been stopped from entering the environment.

Bulb

Bulb only has one tariff and that is their bulb vari fair tariff with 100% renewable electricity and 100% renewable gas. They use a mixture of buying energy direct from generators, through the RGGO and REGO certificates, offsetting and supporting projects through their own charitable Bulb foundation.

The cost of their Vari-Fair tariff works out at £918.52 over the course of a year or £76.54 a month.

We provide all our members with 100% renewable electricity. For every unit you use, we make sure a unit is produced and put on the grid by a renewable source including solar, wind and hydro. Plus, our gas is 100% carbon neutral. We offset the emissions from the gas we supply by supporting carbon reduction projects around the world.

Green Energy UK

Not the most well known of the Green energy providers but they do have the greenest credentials. If you want to make the most environmental difference then this is the energy company to switch to.

However bear in mind that to attain these credentials and do things the right way it does cost more so their tariffs are more expensive. In fact some of the most expensive prices on the market. If you can afford the extra cost then going with Green Energy UK is the most ethical and most impactful thing you can do.

'Dual Fuel Sparkling 2022' is the cheaper of their two tariffs offering 100% renewable electricity and 100% green gas and comes in at £1,382.50 or £115.21 a month. Their 'Dual Fuel EKOenergy' tariff is also 100% green but the green gas is generated from waste materials rather than crops or materials grown specifically for generating green gas making it much more ethical and green. The EKOenergy tariff costs £1,433.10 a year or £119.42 per month.

Put simply: we do care about the environment, but we are not idealists with our heads in the clouds. We are down to earth, in every sense.

Tonik Energy

The green budget energy company Tonik has several green tariffs with its greenest using 10% green gas and the other 90% offset with their carbon offset project in Kenya.

Tonik's cheapest green tariff 'Green SuperPower (1 Year) v5 + Free Boiler Service' is also one of the cheapest green tariffs on the market at £780.60 or £65.05 a month and is 100% renewable electricity.

Tonik Energy's 'Zero Carbon (1 Year) v1' tariff is 100% renewable electricity and 100% carbon offset gas at £969.74 a year or £80.81 a month. Their greenest tariff is 'Greenest Future (2 Year) v1' includes 10% green gas and 90% offset in addition to green electricity costing £1039.92 or £86.66 a month.

We’re committed to supplying green energy at an affordable price; we want to increase the uptake of renewable energy in the UK. To help make this easier, all our tariffs include 100% renewable electricity as standard.

Ecotricity

Ecotricity is the most recognised and first green energy supplier in the UK. Their big draw is that they actually invest in wind energy by investing in their own wind turbines to generate renewable electricity. There has been a lot of talk about generating their own green gas from grass but this has been in the pipeline for many years even when I used to be a customer back in the day.

Ecotricity's 'Green Electricity and Green Gas' tariff is made up of 100% renewable electricity (20% of which they generate themselves) and 100% offset carbon neutral gas. The annual cost for this tariff is £1295.15 working out at £107.93 a month.

Our electricity is 100% green – made from the wind and the sun. We make around a fifth of it ourselves from our fleet of windmills and sunmills – the rest we buy from other green generators.

Good energy

Good Energy supplies renewable electricity by sourcing enough power from renewable generators to match every unit our customers use over a year.

Good Energy are probably one of the most transparent and notoriously accused some other utilities of greenwashing by buying REGO certificates but sourcing their electricity from the wholesale market and buying dirty electricity. Good Energy proactively supports and buys green energy directly from the producers of renewable electricity.

Good Energy's 'Fixed duration' tariff comes in at £1,094 a year (about £91 a month) and includes 100% renewable energy sourced from generators and 10% Biogas with 90% Offset to make the rest carbon neutral. Their flexible tariff is the same but costs £1,389 a year which is about £116 a month.

We buy our 100% renewable electricity from over 1,400 independent generators. From local farms to sustainable businesses that generate their own power and sell us the excess.

Renewable, REGO's and Offset

If the money you are paying your energy supplier for your renewable electricity or renewable gas goes to the company that generates the green energy themselves or buys it directly from a green energy generator then you are encouraging them to invest more in cleaner energy.

When the energy suppliers buy Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates that cost around £1.50 for 3MWh of electricity (about the average a household uses in a year) they could then be buying electricity from the wholesale market generated from burning coal or gas. This does not directly encourage more renewables and has been referred to as greenwashing from energy suppliers such as Good Energy.

Ofgem who manages the REGO certificates issues a certificate for every MWh a renewable generator produces which can be bought by energy suppliers to prove they can match customer demand with generation.

It is very confusing and there should be a simple system so a customer can instantly see on the suppliers website where their energy comes from. In fact Ofgem already states this but some of the companies websites are vague at best.

You can see a list of all the renewable energy suppliers in the UK with a cost comparison that will help you choose a green energy company based on the price they charge for gas and electricity.

When your money goes to offset the carbon your gas and electricity generates rather than directly paying for the green energy then it may not be directly encouraging more green energy investment.

Carbon offsetting credits purchased with your bill money could be going towards planting trees in Kenya or providing solar panels and batteries to remote villages in Nepal. Whilst this is a good thing and much better than getting your gas and electric from a supplier who isn't.

Green washing and Real green energy

For the average consumer looking to do good and make a difference by switching to a green tariff would have an almost impossible task in trying to figure out which gas and electricity supplier is making a difference.

It has taken me numerous hours of research and talking to suppliers to try and figure out how green the supplier actually is, so I can make an honest recommendation to you. I've read many of the other articles that advocate the best green energy supplier but it's all pretty much opinion.

In general suppliers websites are vague at best and misleading at worst and they do not make it clear where they are buying their energy from to supply to you. There are a few exception so kudos to Good Energy, Ecotricity and Green Energy UK.

As a general rule the more expensive the tariff is the more of a difference you switching to that supplier's tariff will make. You can see the issue if you look at the cost of their tariffs, they range from £800 to almost £1,400 for allegedly the same green energy. True green energy costs more to source, especially green gas.

Who is the best UK Green Energy supplier?

On deciding which suppliers and tariffs to recommend I have taken into account what the supplier is doing and if they are really making a difference as well as cost. I'd advocate switching to any of the budget suppliers who offer 100% renewable electricity as you'd probably end up reducing your energy bills anyway as green tariffs dominate the budget energy market. You can verify this by doing a comparison on any energy switching site.