Our environmental responsibilities
As a sustainable business, we've always put protecting the environment and reducing our impact upon it at the heart of our activities. As a supplier and distributor of over a third of the Island's energy, we wholeheartedly support the Government’s carbon neutrality ambitions.
Our responsibility is three-fold:
- Climate change is the greatest challenge and will impact our Island. We are working hard, every day, to reduce our impact.
- We supply our customers with low-carbon power and are growing on-Island renewable energy capabilities.
- Through technology and innovation, we help customers, and the Island as a whole, to use energy more efficiently
Our environmentally friendly energy mix
We import 95% of Jersey's energy requirements from low-carbon nuclear (64%) and hydro (36%) sources in France through three undersea supply links. These links are known as Normandie 1, 2 and 3.
Together, they give the Channel Islands access to 263MW of low-carbon power, of which Jersey has access to 202MW. This importation strategy helped the Island achieve a 47% reduction in emissions between 1990 and 2017.*
Through our growing community solar partnerships, we are generating more and more local, sustainable electricity. Locally-generated renewable energy supports Jersey’s energy sovereignty and security.
We're also accelerating investment in renewables across all main technologies, both large-scale, such as offshore wind and micro-renewables, and exploring the role of tidal power and hydrogen in Jersey.
* Source: Aether
Inspiring a zero carbon future
But we know there is more to be done. We now want to inspire a zero carbon future by intensifying our efforts to replace gas and oil for heating and cooling, encouraging electric transport and providing customers with energy-saving technologies.
In 2019, we began introducing locally-generated solar PV power on to the grid to give all Islanders a share in local renewables. We also invest in research of large-scale renewable technologies such as tidal and wind power.
As a business, we've undertaken several initiatives to reduce our environmental impact from our day-to-day activities.
More than 50% of our vehicles are electric, and we're rapidly adding further electric vehicles to our fleet.
The Evolve public charging network, with more than 110 charge points, is a next generation technology platform which is compatible with charging networks across the UK and Europe. It’s never been easier to charge an electric vehicle on the Evolve network, at home, or abroad.
Reducing our emissions
We voluntarily began reporting our Green House Gas Emissions in line with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (Strategic and Directors’ Reports) Regulations 2013. We use the DEFRA "Environmental Reporting Guidelines: Including mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reporting guidance June 2013".
The methodology breaks down the emissions into the 3 scopes as defined in the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol; our methodology is regularly reviewed to ensure that we are applying it correctly.
The above Regulations and reporting guidelines link in with the Kyoto Protocol, which has seven reportable Green House Gases;
- Carbon dioxide (CO2)
- Methane (CH4)
- Nitrous oxide (N2O)
- Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
- Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
- Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
- Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3)
The individual quantities of these emissions are calculated and added up and finally expressed as CO2e or carbon dioxide equivalent; it is a standard unit for measuring carbon footprints.
The idea is to express the impact of each different greenhouse gas in terms of the same amount of CO2 that would create the equivalent amount of global warming. This way, a carbon footprint consisting of lots of different greenhouse gases can be expressed as a single number.
The carbon intensity of JE’s energy
Carbon intensity is measured in grams of CO2e per kilowatt hour (g CO2e kWh) of distributed electricity*.
In the year ending September 2023, it was 25.29g CO2e/kWh, one-tenth that of the UK’s supply calculated at 233g CO2e/kWh** and much less than local oil (298g CO2e/kWh)*** and gas (241 g CO2e/kWh).***
* Distributed electricity includes transmission losses of the electricity through our network and internal usage.
** Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Greenhouse Gas Reporting - Conversion factors 2020
***Building and Bye-Laws (Jersey) Technical Guidance Document 11.1B 2016
CO2e (blended) per Kilo Watt hour of distributed electricity*
FY23
FY22
FY21
Our Environmental Management System
We have an Environmental Management System (EMS) which covers air and water-based emissions, waste minimisation, water use and energy efficiency and we use the stringent standards. We align our EMS with ISO 14001 the international standard for environmental management systems to benchmark ourselves and ensure continual improvement.
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