Sarah Merrick, CEO and Founder of Ripple, tells us why investing in a wind farm could save you cash on your home energy bills and save the environment.
Using clean energy in your home while saving money sounds great, but where do we start? Options like solar panels and heat pumps, though an effective solution and a goal to build towards, can be a big investment. Making your home energy efficient is always going to take an investment of some kind; with Ripple you can invest in renewable energy for as little as £25.
Ripple enables its customers to own a little bit of a large wind farm or solar park to get the clean low-cost electricity that it generates supplied to their homes by the grid, giving them savings on their electricity bill. Solar and wind create the cheapest forms of electricity in the UK; by investing in your own supply of electricity, you effectively bypass the energy market.
Sarah Merrick, CEO and Founder of Ripple, says: “How much you save depends on how much you own, the more you own, the more low-cost electricity your bid generates. Members of our first wind farm saved on average £300 off their bills last year and then this year they’re set to save over £900.” Sarah does suggest that savings are expected to be high this year because of the rise in demand caused by the energy crisis but she explains: “Basically Ripple provides a net effect to help stabilise people’s bills for the long term.”
By using Ripple, you are also actively cultivating a cleaner energy future for the UK. By funding wind farms and solar parks, you are encouraging and strengthening renewable energy supply and moving away from fossil fuels. Sarah explains: “Our customers are directly enabling these new wind farms and solar parks to be built. So, by enabling a new wind farm that’s going to be generating low-cost green electricity for 25 years increasing the amount of renewable energy capacity in the UK, it will then increase the amount of green electricity on the system for its lifetime.”
Ripple is also a great way for renters to make a difference to how their home energy is supplied.
Previously all sustainable home energy alternatives such as installing solar panels, a heat pump, or an electric boiler all require major home alterations which renters often don’t have the permission
to make. Now with your investment it doesn’t matter whether you’re a homeowner or a renter, you can still be involved in active change for clean energy and reap its benefits.
The only thing which does matter is your energy provider. Sarah says the most common misconception about Ripple is that they get mistaken for an energy provider: “We partner with providers which means you’ve still got a choice about who your energy is supplied by. At the moment we work with Co-op Energy, Octopus Energy, and Aon Energy so before you invest you need to switch to one of them to get your savings applied to your electricity bills.”
Rippleenergy. com