What is GreenPower?
Imagine if we took 930,000 cars off the roads across Australia this year. That’s how much GreenPower’s residential and business customers have already contributed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions since its introduction.
Established in 1997, GreenPower is a national accreditation program that sets stringent environmental and reporting standards for renewable electricity products offered by energy suppliers to households and businesses across Australia. GreenPower aims to increase Australia’s capacity to produce environmentally friendly renewable electricity by driving demand for alternative energy generation.
Since 1997, more than 590,000 residential and commercial customers Australia wide have contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by buying GreenPower, resulting in savings of nearly 4.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
How does it work?
Companies generate electricity at a range of sites across Australia and supply the electricity to a central power grid. Our homes and businesses are connected to this grid so we can access electricity.
Traditionally, electricity on the central grid comes from generators that burn coal. Burning Coal creates massive amounts of greenhouse gases. ‘It is these gases, which is causing global warming!’ Only a small amount (about eight per cent) comes from renewable sources such as sun, wind, water and biomass waste.
Energy suppliers who sell accredited GreenPower products buy electricity generated from accredited renewable energy generators on your behalf and feed it into the National Electricity Grid. In Western Australia, the same applies to the South West Interconnected System.
Only renewable energy products that display the GreenPower ‘tick’ are government accredited.
What qualifies as 'eligible' renewable energy?
Renewable energy is energy that never runs out. Renewable energy is energy derived from sources that cannot be depleted or energy that can be replaced, such as solar, wind, biomass (waste), wave or hydro. Renewable sources don’t produce greenhouse gas pollution.
