Here and I imagine in many places, we have the option to buy Green energy credits to essentially greenify the power we buy. You can set a percentage of green energy and then you’re billed say 2 cents per kwh per 10%.
If would be nice if you can could tweak the co2signal value with a “% green energy purchased”.
Implementation details:
Suppose i pay for 50% green energy from the above, but CO2Signal reports our area having a fossil fuel percentage of 75%. That means our non-fossil consumption as reported by CO2Signal is 62.5% (50% is completely clean, and the other 50% is 25% clean).
I contacted our green energy provider and they confirmed that you’re paying to green the non-green fraction only, so my 62.5% example above is correct.
I think in your proposed calculation you are mistaken about the good intentions of energy companies. If you pay for 50% green enery, you will most likely be responsible for 50% fossil as well. The 25% green for the region may very well be one person paying for 100% green and three other persons not paying extra for green at all. Those other three will not get the 25% green. Only if more green is produced than sold, will you get more green than you are pledged.
Even worse, a lot of energy companies produce less green than they sell. For instance in the Netherlands, it is quite likely that the green Energy is produced in Norway (and consumed there) because the Netherlands do not produce enough themselves. Norway then sells the green production credits to your energy company. So you may get all your actual energy supply from a gas-plant. The green energy sold to you is is actually international bookkeeping, where the rule is that the amount of green energy sold must not exceed the total of non-fossil energy production.
So basically, you most likely get no more green energy than you pay for, and the green production percentage of your region is not necessarily connected to what you pay for or where your actual supply comes from. So the Signal CO2 value does not have any relevance for what you consume in terms of non fossil fuel. You get what percentage you pay for, if you do not pay extra for green, the green rights go to someone who does.
You can tell why the energy company is lying: lets say the ratio for your suppier is 0 and you are the only consumer. You start paying for 50% green so your provider will start producing green. So now the green ratio in your region is no longer 0. By your calculation, you should now get 75% green because your provider now produces 50% green? Oh wait, the provider then needs to produce 75 percent to make that come true. But if the regio then produces 75%, you’re entitled to 87,5,…
And also, why should anyone ever pay for 100% green if you already get some percentagegreen from the energy company?
Well at least in my case I had an extensive conversation with the provider to confirm. And they don’t let you green up more than 30%.
Now that I think about it, if you could point the energy dashboard at a template sensor (like you can with pricing) instead of just c02signal directly, you could cover every scenario. That would be best, right?
A template sensor for the %fossil in net power would be ideal.
But after the extensive discussion with your energy provider, how would you know that the amount of green fuel you pay for is not calculated into the Signal ratio then? It would assume a differentiation between your bought green energy and other green energy that Signal does not count. You would need to get an actual rating from your energy company that is not derived from the total production ratio in your region, unless the energy company promises it is not produced in your region. But if it is not, then some one else is claiming as their own too. The pitfall of your energy company I described in my previous post is real if they do as they claim. They would be on 100% green before they knew it.
I am still convinced you cannot add the signal ratio to the 30% you pay for. And I am dead sure the 100% I pay for is not 135% I am also sure that if the signal ratio is around 35% here, someone else must be getting less than 35% if they need to give me 100%.
The signal ratio is an average, which does not take into account the fact that no one gets average if you can either pay for green or grey in any distribution you like.
the problem here is, that there are too many different options available.
For example, here in germany we already have an high amount of ‘green’ energy in our energy mixture.
Anyway - I have selected a company which provides “100%” renewable energy.
Although - I know, that the energy I am receiving is just the same mixture everyone else is receiving.
Why?
This is due to how the whole market is working…
The provider provides X kWh energy to me.
He knows, that I am paying for 100% renewable - so he needs to by this amount of renewable energy from the market - or needs to asure, that the amount of energy I am using comes from renewable energy.
Anyway - the delivered energy comes from the available mixture, so CO²Signal providing the information of the available energy mixture is right - and the goal should be, to get this as 100% renewable… not on a ‘personal’ level
Yes, that is what I described for the Netherlands as well. And knowing that my expensive 100% green energy is partially claimed from Norwegian green energy production, some Norwegians are falsely assuming they use the green energy produced there, while in fact they are using grey energy from plants here, because of this awful system.
So indeed, only from a global perspective every country should do their bit, but the national values say very little about personal effort/investment indeed. And it also doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay for green energy, because that is now the system forces energy companies to do their bit.
I know this topic is a bit “older”, but I am new to Home Assistant and I use the CO2 Signal tool too. My electricity is 100% renewable as it is for some of the other people on this thread. I could easily remove the CO2 Signal from my configuration and be happy. My problem is that I also use natural gas as an energy source (for heating). Unfortunately, my natural gas is not from a renewable source. If I could “declare” the electrical energy as 100% renewable, then the CO2 Signal would be fairly accurate.
Any chance that such an option is added?
@dubmaker , heating would be drawing from a different data source altogether, of course, though you’d still like to understand how many grams of CO2 you would be emitting per hour. I suggest starting a different thread would be apropos, and if your thermostat is able to report when your gas furnace is on (and if a multi-stage furnace, the stage changes), that may be the most direct starting point.
I am also sure that if the signal ratio is around 35% here, someone else must be getting less than 35% if they need to give me 100%.