Energy Efficiency

A former GreenPower retailer has been caught by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for receiving money from people who thought they were investing in renewable energy and spending it on other things.

Global Green Plan Ltd, using the name GreenSwitch, was deregistered from the national GreenPower program in September 2008 for failing to buy enough renewable energy certificates, but it continued to trade through its website until November.

The company will now have to buy 4000 renewable energy certificates to make up the shortfall.

‘The ACCC investigated GreenSwitch activities and found the numbers didn’t stack up and that they took money from customers and did not use it for what it was intended. The GreenSwitch company’s website read: ”GreenSwitch is no longer accredited to sell GreenPower renewable energy. We apologise for any inconvenience. GreenSwitch is examining other options in the field of carbon credits.”

The GreenPower program has over a million customers in Australia. It encourages households and businesses to pay extra on their energy bills to support investment in solar, wind and other forms of renewable power. It creates renewable energy certificates equivalent to one megawatt hour of renewable energy. But the program itself has previously been questioned by the ACCC, which wrote to the NSW Department of Water and Energy in August asking that it no longer say the scheme would ”make a real difference” to the environment.

As a result of discussions with the consumer watchdog, the department changed the wording on its website and wrote to energy companies asking that the phrase ”significant results for our environment” be replaced with ”renewable energy for our future”.

The doubts arose because the Federal Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme effectively sets both a ceiling and a floor on greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that voluntary actions to reduce carbon emissions could be seen as simply creating more space under the emissions cap for companies to pollute.

The Government maintains this interpretation of the system is wrong, and voluntary efforts, such as buying GreenPower, would be included in any targets for emissions cuts from the start of this year. The Government’s target range for carbon cuts by 2020 took voluntary cuts into account, the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, has said.

The ACCC’s GreenSwitch announcement came a day after it said it would take court action against a carbon trading company, Prime Carbon, saying it allegedly made misleading representations about the National Environment Registry and the stock exchange.

One wonders when the ACCC investitages ENERGEX for having customers pay a premium for alternative energy which they were never able to supply and just boosted their bottom line.