How green is your energy provider?

Australian households are getting greener every year, yet some energy providers have been found to be actively undermining the growth of clean energy resources, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) announced this week.

Towards the end of 2012, Australia’s Climate Change Authority conducted a review of the nation’s Renewable Energy Target (RET), and ACF took the opportunity to assess just how ‘green’ the positions of the energy providers were when it came to supporting clean energy.

The results, collected in the "Green Electricity Watch" report, were enlightening.

Of the nine major companies ACF investigated – who collectively provide energy to over three quarters of Australia’s households – only one was found to be supportive of the government taking steps to increase the nation’s rate of renewable energy uptake.

Climate change program manager at ACF Tony Mohr said that provider is Diamond Energy, a company which “fully supports increasing the target and setting an ambitious, long-term target beyond 2020”.

“At the bottom, there are Origin Energy, its subsidiaries and Energy Australia (formerly TRUenergy), whose positions will actively hamper growth in clean energy jobs and investment in Australia”, Mr Mohr said.

“It’s often hard to see through the jargon and fine print to get a solid understanding of how energy companies feel about renewable energy, so hopefully this report will help consumers make choices about which provider they use if they want to go green.

"Australians are enthusiastic about renewable energy.

“Almost a million Australians now have rooftop solar power”, he added.

ACF has set up a website – Renewable Target Practice – where people can go and see how their energy provider’s words of support for clean energy stack up against their positions on the 20 per cent target.