The experience of an embedded supplier

The Renewable Energy Company was founded in 1995. The aim of the company is to bring about significant environmental improvement through the promotion and supply of green electricity and the commissioning of new capacity. At that time the two options open to would be developers of renewable energy schemes were to seek a contract under NFFO or with their host REC. Both had major disadvantages, NFFO rounds were infrequent, hotly contested and did not enable wind turbines to be built in less windy areas and contracts with host RECs were simply uneconomic. The solution appeared to be the formation of an electricity company dedicated to the supply of renewable energy sources-direct to the end user-and the payment to generators of more economic rates-to enable non-NFFO projects. An essential part of that process has been the development of new trading methods and the securing of the benefits of embedded generation, some of which were available but not shared equitably and some of which were not available. The trading experience of the company, embedded benefits, and the embedded suppliers DUoS credit are discussed