Cut Business Energy Bills By 25%

Energy efficiency and energy management are the trending topics of the UK energy industry these days. By trending topics I mean that these two terms are the subject of discussion in many board meetings of small, medium and large corporations across the UK, but according to the Carbon Trust there are still a high number of businesses overlooking them.  According to the Carbon Trust; industrial, commercial and public sector organisations can save up to 25% on their energy bills by taking energy management and energy efficiency more seriously.

Due to do the global economic instabilities, cutting overheads is high on the agenda of all corporations, but what is rather intriguing is that many businesses don’t give energy costs the attention they deserve.

Energy management and energy efficiency are directly related to each other. Since energy management is the systematic use of new technology and methods to improve an organisation’s energy performance (efficiency).

But in order to harness all the benefits both have to offer they need to be integrated, proactive and incorporated to an energy procurement service.

An effective energy procurement service can save a business thousands of pounds each year by finding the best business energy and business gas contracts. Many companies try to do this in-house and end up wasting time and money, so the best thing to do here is to hire an energy consultancy firm and let them do what they do best, find cheap business energy and business gas prices.

Besides offering FREE advice for businesses that can cut their energy bills by up to 25%, the Carbon Trust has published a new guide Energymanagement – a comprehensive guide to controlling energy use (registration/login required for download), which is part of the Trust’s Expert in Energy series and contrasts poor practice with good practice of energy management and efficiency.

The guide includes an Energy Management Assessment for an organisation to test itself on how energy-aware it already is and where there is room for improvement. Businesses can then chart their way through an ‘energy management matrix’ of options.

Probably the biggest concern of organisations nowadays is the payback time. That is when this guide comes in handy as some of the measures listed on it have ridiculously short payback times. Useful would be a fresh pair of eyes to analyse habitual behaviour patterns and productions processes and then point out possible changes. Hence the importance of hiring an energy consultancy firm.

If that isn’t enough, the Carbon Trust can provide Small and Medium sized businesses with an interest free loan of up to £400,000, for investment in energy efficiency enhancements.

If you would like more information on our range of business energy services or would simply like to find out how we could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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UK Gas Prices to Rise Before 2012

Earlier this month we reported that wholesale gas prices were on the rise again, due to a series of factors. Now as we approach the winter with the need for heating in the UK, demand on the rise in Europe, as well as Asia, the predictions are that UK gas prices will increase towards the end of the year.  One of the main reasons of this rise is the diversion of LNG cargos to Asia, where prices and demand are higher, which will then force the UK and Europe to put their prices up in order to compete.

Since the Japanese nuclear disaster in March, the global LNG market has tightened up on the ramping up of imports and it is expected to become even tighter as Qatargas will stop four trains for maintenance in October.

On Friday, Deutsche Bank said in a research note “the loss of imports to the UK in October, when Qatargas II Train 5’s maintenance takes place, probably won’t be softened by contributions from other Qatargas trains. It’s possible that the drop in imports will be closer to the full 28 million cubic metres per day.”

To prevent a natural gas shortage, the South Hook LNG terminal will have to absorb the full impact of Qatargas’s train maintenance. However, according to the Deustche Bank research, September had seen relatively little impact to the UK imports from maintenance expected to occur at Qatargas III Train 6.

Up to Date UK Gas Prices (Updated)

On Monday gas prices rose 36 percent to 52 pence-per-therm earlier in the session but eased latter in the session as supplies increased. In October gas also firmed and front month contracts rose 1.30 pence to 62.95 pence per therm rebounding prompt prices which offered an incentive to buy.

Winter 2011/12 gas prices rose 0.10 pence to 73.00 pence, trading above its 50, 100 and 200 exponential daily moving average (DMA) values.

Despite the rise in natural gas prices, energy prices fell on Monday as wind power production peaked and exports to France were capped at 1,000 megawatts.

Baseload day-ahead power fell around one pound to 48.50 pounds per megawatt-hours (MWh).

If you would like more information on our range of uk gas prices or would simply like to find out how we could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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Save £1,000s On Business Energy With Heat Recovery

Heat recovery is one of the most efficient thermodynamic technologies that could help businesses save thousands of pounds each year on their energy bills. According to the Carbon Trust, each year millions of pounds leak out from UK businesses in the form of wasted heat, which was the main reason they published “Heat Recovery – A guide to key systems and applications”.

Their guide helps businesses identify whether there is the possibility of recovering heat from their electrical equipment and reusing it in other areas of their business. Thereby they could reduce their business energy consumption by as much as 30%, whilst lowering their carbon emissions.

Clearly heat recovery is one of the most promising business energy efficient options out there but due to high investment costs many companies have overlooked it. This is the reason why the Carbon Trust went into partnership with Siemens and created a £550 million fund to finance energy efficient equipment for businesses that are willing to invest in the technology.

Dave Pearson, director of innovation at Star Refrigeration, stated “It’s estimated that around 15% of the UK’s electrical output is currently being used for cooling systems. These cooling systems employ electrical energy to transfer around three times as much heat away from buildings, food, people and computers, which, after these cooling processes have taken place, both the extracted heat and electrical energy in the form of heat are usually discarded to the atmosphere.”

Dave Pearson then goes on to say that we have the technology to recover all this wasted heat and all we need now “are pioneering manufacturers who are not afraid to head out on the road to heat recovery.”

Heat can be recovered from just about any industrial process like drying, cooking, evaporating, separating, curing, heat treating, melting and so on. The Carbon Trust’s guide is aimed to help managers identify where heat is being lost and suggest techniques to recover it.

Richard Rugg, director of Carbon Trust Programmes, said: “From office-based businesses to retailers and manufacturers, there are significant opportunities to recover and reuse heat, save money and boost your bottom line”.

The guide will show business owners examples of businesses who are already harnessing the benefits of heat recovery. An example, “Office spaces with a number of servers for their computers produce a significant amount of heat, which frequently requires the use of 24-hour cooling to keep them operating efficiently. If the waste heat from the condensing units were to be captured it could used elsewhere in the building for hot water heating. For a typical 250 person new build office, this could cut £1,000 from gas bills.”

Businesses could reduce their business gas consumption by around 40% by installing heat recovery systems on their ventilation units which would pay for itself in just two years, is just another example.

There are many other examples on The Carbon Trust’s Guide which you can download here (login required). This guide is part of the Trust’s Expert in Energy Series which already published a guide entitled “Refrigeration Systems” that offers zero to low costs steps that businesses can take to cut their refrigeration energy bills by up to 20%.

If you would like more information on our range of business energy services or would simply like to find out how we could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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Energy Market Report September 2011

Our monthly analysis of the UK gas and power markets is now available on line for the month of September  2011.  The service is intended to keep you up to date with all the major news in Europe’s gas and power markets. It is also designed to keep power executives focused on market activity in an easy to digest format.

Your find our September 2011 report here and all historical energy reports can be located here.

If you would like more information on our services or would like to find out how this could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560r request a call back at time to suit.

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Rising UK Wholesale Gas Prices

UK wholesale gas prices are on the rise once again

Over the past week a series of factors forced UK wholesale gas prices to go up.  There are rumours that Norway are planning to divert Europipe 1 supply to Germany, also unexpected operational problems from ConocoPhillip’s Theddlethorpe gas terminal, amongst other factors such as Belgian LNG tankers redirected to Japan, PX’s Teesside plant scheduled maintenance outage in September and Qatargas rolling maintenance over the coming months are all contributing in the rise in UK wholesale  gas prices.

Wholesale Gas Prices for Monday’s delivery rose 0.55 pence to 57.10 pence per therm and Tuesday’s gas traded 1.10 pence higher at 57.75 pence.

British gas for October’s delivery rose 0.70 pence to 65.50 pence, while November’s gas increased to 72.75 pence.

Another factor that weighted on UK gas contracts on the far end of the curve was the recession fears in America. Winter 2011/2012 gas contract’s firmed at 73.85 pence up 0.35 pence, while winter 2012/13 gas shed 0.60 pence at 74.60 pence, guided by falling crude oil prices.

Meanwhile, a letter leaked from the Prime Minister’s senior policy adviser on energy and environment. warned that current policies could add 30% to consumer energy bills by 2020. According to Ben Moxham’s letter wholesale gas prices will play a major role in these rises.

“If gas prices are low in 2020, the cost of policies promoting nuclear and renewables would be high, he says, and it would not be cost effective to pursue these policies.  If however, gas prices are high, reliance on nuclear power and renewables “could conceivably” be better for consumers.” – writes Mr. Moxham.

According the Mr. Moxham’s letter there are four policies that stand out as having the most significant impact on household and business energy bills: carbon pricing (both out own carbon price floor and the EU emissions trading scheme), the new Energy Company Obligation, our Electricity Market Reform package and the Renewables Obligation.

For further information: Telegraph | www.decc.gov

If you would like more information on our range of UK Wholesale Gas Prices or would simply like to find out how we could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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