Devon renewable electricity tariff

Regen has been working with local authorities, community groups and licensed suppliers for many years to explore different approaches to local supply. The main problem we always come up against is that, despite it making sense to balance generation and demand locally, there are no financial benefits from doing so within current regulations (unless you have a private wire network).

Plus, without widespread rollout of smart meters and half hourly settlement of domestic and small commercial customer bills, there is no incentive for customers to shift their demand to times of high local generation through smart tariffs.

But instead of waiting for the situation to change, we are working with Devon County Council and a number of licensed suppliers to set up a simple, flat rate tariff that is a fraction higher than the going rate and enables them to buy their equivalent annual consumption from local generators. We are also looking for a supplier that is willing to contribute a little extra to the pot in return for help recruiting (hopefully) lots of ‘sticky’ customers.

The ultimate goal is for the supplier to be able to offer new community owned generation projects a higher power purchase agreement (PPA) that enables them to be built, when they otherwise would not have been able to.

This is the briefing that we shared with licensed suppliers to stimulate conversations about what is and isn’t possible. The briefing sets out what we wanted the tariff to achieve and the potential role of the supplier.

Devon Renewable Electricity Tariff Briefing