Your electricity grid is a shared pool. Every power plant in your country, whether it burns coal, splits atoms, or catches wind, feeds into the same network. When you flip a light switch or charge your laptop, you draw from that shared mix. You cannot physically choose which electrons reach your socket.
So what happens when you sign up with a "green" energy provider? Are you actually getting clean electricity, or is it just marketing?
How the grid actually works
Think of the electricity grid like a large lake. Rivers flow in from all directions: a coal plant here, a wind farm there, a gas turbine somewhere else. Once the water is in the lake, you cannot tell which river it came from. You just draw from the lake.
Your home is connected to this lake. Regardless of which company you pay, the physical electricity flowing through your wall socket is the same national mix as everyone else on the grid. The carbon cost of that mix is measured by something called carbon intensity, expressed in grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour (gCO2/kWh). It tells you how much CO2 is released for every unit of electricity your country generates. The lower the number, the cleaner the grid.
In the Netherlands, the grid carbon intensity is roughly 284 gCO2/kWh. In Germany, about 385 gCO2/kWh. In France, around 85 gCO2/kWh.
What "green" providers actually do
When a green energy provider says they supply 100% renewable electricity, they do not mean that wind or solar electrons are physically delivered to your house. What they do is purchase Guarantees of Origin (GOs) in Europe, or Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) in the US.
These certificates work like this: every time a wind farm generates 1 MWh of electricity, it also creates one certificate proving that 1 MWh of clean energy was added to the grid. Your green provider buys enough of these certificates to match your total consumption. On paper, your usage is covered by renewables.
Does it actually help?
This is where it gets interesting. There are two ways to look at it.
The sceptical view is that certificates are just accounting tricks. The physical electricity in your socket does not change. The wind farm was going to generate power regardless. You are paying a small premium for a piece of paper.
The practical view is more optimistic. When demand for green energy contracts rises, it sends a market signal. Providers need more certificates, which means they need more renewable generation. This makes new wind and solar projects more financially viable. Over time, more renewable capacity gets built, and the grid as a whole gets cleaner.
Research from the European Commission suggests that certificate systems have contributed to renewable energy growth, though the effect varies by country and market design. They are not perfect, but they are not meaningless either.
The real impact: grid decarbonisation
The most meaningful change happens at the grid level. When a country invests in renewable infrastructure, replaces coal plants with wind farms, or keeps nuclear reactors running, the entire grid gets cleaner. Every person, every business, every data centre in that country benefits automatically.
This is why grid carbon intensity varies so dramatically between countries. France did not get to 85 gCO2/kWh because everyone chose green providers. It got there because it built nuclear plants decades ago. Poland is at over 700 gCO2/kWh, not because people did not choose sustainable providers, but because the national infrastructure still runs on coal.
Should you switch?
Yes, absolutely. Switching to a green energy provider is one of the easiest and most meaningful actions you can take. The collective demand signal matters. When millions of households choose green plans, it accelerates the business case for new renewable projects and pushes the entire grid in the right direction.
Next to selecting a green energy provider, you can also contribute in other ways: supporting grid-level decarbonisation through policy, reducing your total energy consumption which lowers demand regardless of the source, and scheduling heavy digital tasks during peak solar hours (typically midday) when the grid is at its cleanest.
Every green energy contract adds momentum to the transition. The grid of tomorrow is shaped by the choices millions of people make today, and choosing a sustainable provider is one of the most direct ways to be part of that shift.