Power firm misused green funds - Retailer faces $80,000 demand

Age
Thursday 7/1/2010 Page: 6

A FORMER GreenPower retailer has been caught by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for receiving money from people who thought they were investing in renewable energy and spending it on other things. Global Green Plan Ltd, using the name GreenSwitch, was deregistered from the national GreenPower program in September 2008 for failing to buy enough renewable energy certificates, but it continued to trade through its website until November.

The company will have to buy more than 4000 renewable energy certificates, at a cost likely to be more than $80,000, to make up the shortfall. "The ACCC investigated the GreenSwitch activities and found the numbers didn't match up," the acting chairman of the ACCC, Michael Schaper, said in a statement. "To take money from customers and not use it as it was intended is simply unacceptable."

GreenSwitch could not be contacted yesterday, but a statement on the company's website read: "GreenSwitch is no longer accredited to sell GreenPower renewable energy We apologise for any inconvenience. Green-Switch is examining other options in the field of carbon credits." The company's directors have agreed to write to customers and explain the situation, the ACCC said.

The GreenPower program, which has more than a million customers around Australia, encourages households and businesses to pay extra on their energy bills to support investment in solar, wind and other forms of renewable power. It creates renewable energy certificates equivalent to one MW hour of renewable energy.

But the program has been questioned by the ACCC, which wrote to the NSW Department of Water and Energy in August asking that it no longer say the scheme would "make a real difference" to the environment. As a result of discussions with the consumer watchdog, the department changed the wording on its website and wrote to energy companies asking that the phrase "significant results for our environment" be replaced with "renewable energy for our future".

The doubts arose because the Federal Government's proposed emissions trading scheme sets a ceiling and floor on greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that voluntary actions to reduce carbon emissions could be seen as simply creating more space under the emissions cap for companies to pollute.

The Government maintains that this interpretation of the system is wrong, and voluntary efforts, such as buying GreenPower, would be included in targets for emissions cuts from the start of this year. The Government's target range for carbon cuts by 2020 took voluntary cuts into account, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has said.

The ACCC's GreenSwitch announcement came a day after it said it would take court action against carbon trading company Prime Carbon, saying it allegedly made misleading representations about the National Environment Registry and the stock exchange. The ACCC said the company had misled farmers and landholders into believing they could generate carbon credits by capturing more greenhouse gases in soil and vegetation. A directions hearing is set down for February 23 at the Federal Court in Brisbane.