With renewable energies to a sustainable heating experience
In times of steadily rising emissions and advancing climate change, more and more people are concerned about making their own lives as environmentally friendly as possible. Choosing the right form of heating can also play a decisive role here: Energy-efficient infrared heaters like our Heat4All ICONIC infrared heaters in combination with environmentally friendly green electricity can help you keep your ecological footprint as low as possible. In the following, we would like to introduce you to the concept of green electricity in a little more detail and also give you some useful tips for choosing your green electricity provider.
What is green electricity actually?
Generally, green electricity or natural electricity is energy that comes from renewable energy sources – primarily hydropower, wind power, solar energy, and energy from geothermal energy; however, energy from biomass and from sewage or landfill gas is also usually considered green electricity. However, energy sources that irretrievably consume raw materials, including coal, oil or natural gas, are excluded. Forms of energy with great potential for environmental damage, most notably nuclear energy, are also exempt. In summary, therefore, green electricity can be equated with electricity that is as environmentally friendly as possible and comes from renewable energy sources.
Why should green electricity be preferred to conventional forms of electricity?
As mentioned above, green electricity generally comes from environmentally friendly, renewable energy sources. In detail, this means that the production is not dependent on limited raw materials and, on top of that, has the lowest possible environmentally harmful emissions and waste. In order to counteract the current negative environmental developments such as the rapidly advancing climate change and to prevent catastrophic incidents such as those in Chernobyl or Fukushima, it is therefore absolutely necessary to renounce conventional forms of energy in the future and to rely on green electricity instead.
Locate the right green power provider
When choosing the right green electricity provider, you should pay attention to several factors:
- Not all green electricity is the same: Some forms of energy are more “ecological” than others – solar or wind energy, for example, are associated with far fewer emissions than, say, energy from biomass. You should therefore also keep an eye on which energy sources the respective provider actually relies on.
- Beware of black sheep: While green electricity is precisely regulated in some countries, such as Austria, there are no such clear definitions in others, such as Germany. Some suppliers thus offer green electricity that does not actually come from environmentally friendly, renewable energy sources, but has merely been re-declared as such in a roundabout way – for example, via the controversial EECS certificate (formerly RECS certificate).
- Pay attention to price-performance ratio: Prices for green electricity can vary greatly between providers; it is therefore advisable to use comparison platforms such as E-Control in Austria. At E-Control, users can also directly use the “green electricity” filter for easier selection – suppliers of conventional electricity are thus not included from the outset.
- Pay attention to additional services: Good green power providers are distinguished not only by the fact that they obtain their energy from environmentally friendly, renewable energy sources, but also by the fact that they invest in the expansion of ecological energy production, for example by expanding green power plants or by investing in research into further renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources.
Environmentally friendly green electricity for environmentally friendly heating systems
If you want to live in an environmentally friendly way and with the smallest possible ecological footprint, you should not only rely on green electricity, but also on environmentally friendly alternatives when it comes to heating. Common forms of heating, such as gas or oil heating, generate their own emissions and thus also contribute directly to climate change. Electricity heating, on the other hand, can be completely free of such emissions thanks to the use of green electricity, making it one of the most sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives on the heating market. The often held prejudice that electric heaters are real power guzzlers and their operation is automatically accompanied by horrendously high costs, is no longer true: Energy-efficient infrared heaters, such as our Heat4All ICONIC infrared heaters, can help you thanks to Lowest energy requirements with highest heating capacity even help to specifically save heating costs, and come with a whole range of other benefits on top of that.
If you have any further questions about heating with green electricity or the associated benefits, please contact us at any time and we will be happy to inform you.
