Ecotricity in drive to win a million customers

The most ambitious campaign yet to persuade households to switch to green electricity is to be launched next month by one of the country's biggest wind turbine developers.

Ecotricity, which includes J Sainsbury and Ford among its customers, is aiming to sign up one million domestic customers to its new environmentally friendly tariff and build 500 megawatts of community wind power capacity by 2010.

The campaign is being backed by Smile, the Co-op's internet bank, Body Shop, the Soil Association, the Wild Fowl and Wetlands Trust and Future Forests.

Customers who sign up will receive 10 per cent of their electricity from wind turbines in the first year and a further 10 per cent in each subsequent year. Ecotricity also has plans for a dual-fuel deal so customers can buy gas at the same time. It may even seek to capitalise on the troubles facing British Energy by launching a "nuclear-free" tariff.

Dale Vince, the founder and managing director of Ecotricity, said: "Our aim is to bring about significant environmental improvement by creating a mass market for electricity through building new clean green sources of energy."

Unlike electricity giants such as ScottishPower and British Energy which are proposing to build large windfarms, Ecotricity's idea is to site wind turbines in local areas close to where the electricity will be used.