Energy Saving Week 2011

Engaging your Employees to Save Energy

On its fifteenth edition EST’s (Energy Saving Trust) Energy Saving Week 2011 kicked off on Monday with a focus on households and how consumers can “Take back control of your energy bills”. Despite being aimed at household consumers business owners can show their support by engaging their employees with information to empower them to save energy and reduce their bills.

By helping employees reduce their energy bills business owners are not only helping employees save money but they are also increasing the impact of their organisation’s energy efficiency and sustainability strategy.

Energy Saving Week 2011 has five individual mini theme days and these are:

• Monday – Launch day
• Tuesday – Microgeneration
• Wednesday – Energy Saving Trust Recommended
• Thursday – Energy Efficiency in the home
• Friday – Transport

As afore mentioned this year’s focus is on household energy efficiency and how consumers can improve it to save money and reduce their carbon footprint but the Trust also wants business owners and decision makers to engage their employees reason why it compiled an Employees Engagement Pack.

The engagement pack can be downloaded here and is packed with tips, quizzes, posters, website banners and interactive tools so businesses can show their support to this year’s Energy Saving Week.

To show our support here are some tips our energy consultants compiled to increase your household energy efficiency:

1. Draught Proof windows and doors and save around 30 a year.

2. Using EST’s recommended light bulbs and save another 30 a year.

3. Turn-off appliances on Standby, according to the EST savings could be of approximately 40 a year.

4. Insulating your loft to the full recommended depth of 270mm could save up to £175 a year on heating bills if no insulation is already present.

5. Insulate your walls to help reduce the amount of energy you need to heat your home and save up to 135 a year. For older properties with solid walls savings could reach the 450 pounds mark a year.

6. Upgrade to Energy Saving Trust Recommended Appliances.

7. Fit Thermostatic Radiator Valves.

8. Insulate your water tank and visible waterlines between tanker and boiler.

By raising your employee’s awareness to household energy efficiency you will also note that most of them will also become more energy efficient at work enabling you to also save money on your business electricity and business gas bills.

If you would like more information on our range of Business Energy Efficiency 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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How to Improve your Business Energy Efficiency

Due to the unstable global economic situation, small to large corporations are developing clever ways to optimise their production processes and services to cut overheads. They are however failing to give energy management and efficiency the attention they deserve.

If your company doesn’t have an energy management plan in place, then hopefully this article will help you to find ways to improve your energy efficiency and also give you ideas on more ways to save money on energy bills.

Let’s start by stating that 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).

Energy Procurement

Effective and proactive energy management starts with energy procurement. Finding the best energy contracts to suit your business needs is one of the most important steps of a straight forward energy management scheme. There are two ways of doing it, you can either do it in-house or hire the services of business energy brokers.

My advice is to leave it to the professionals. Energy brokers are trained professionals with vast experience on the energy market and are able to find your company the best business electricity prices and contracts according to your needs, this will then enable you to start saving money on energy bills right away.

Energy Consultancy

Energy consultancy differs slightly from procurement since it is focused on improving a businesses energy efficiency through the implementation of new ideas, methodologies and approaches to current processes.

Energy consultants are highly skilled professionals who will uncover areas which could gain significant improvement that may not have been previously identified and therefore reduce costs by increasing your business energy efficiency.

Heat Recovery

This thermodynamic technology is one the most promising business energy efficient services available out there. Businesses alike can save thousands of pounds by implementing heat recovery technologies but many business are still reluctant about it due to high investment costs.

In the UK, the Carbon Trust, a non-profit making company which provides specialist support to help businesses and the public sectors boost their energy saving whilst cutting carbon emissions, created a joint fund with Siemens. £550 million was imput to finance energy efficient equipment for businesses that are willing to invest in the heat recovery.

Payback Time

One of the biggest concerns when investing in new improvements and technologies, is the payback time. A guide published by Carbon Trust provides an extensive list of measures for business alike to improve their energy efficiency with some extremely short payback time. Despite being intended for UK businesses this guide can be perfectly used by US businesses.

If you would like more information on our range of Business Energy Efficiency 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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Renewable Energy Generation Doubles

Electricity generated from Renewables reaches 10% but still with no major impact on energy prices.  Renewable energy generation, registered an increase in supply of 50% in comparison to the same period last year and now accounts for almost 10% of all the electricity generated in the UK. However this has had hardly any noticeable impact on energy prices.

Theoretically, renewable energy generation is supposed to be cheaper than any other type of electricity generation, therefore such increase was expected to drag wholesale energy prices down. So why this increase hasn’t had any impact on wholesale energy prices?

The answer is fairly simple, it is due to the UK’s high dependence on fossil fuel generated energy, with natural gas and coal as the biggest villains.

Despite the lower dependence on coal fired power plants, the fossil registered prices are 11.9% higher in Q2 2011 compared to Q2 2010. Business gas prices, including the Climate Change Levy (CCL), were 34.1% higher in current terms in Q2 2011 compared to Q2 2010,whilst prices excluding CCL were 35.4% higher.

Some industry experts blame these price rises on government policies to promote low carbon energy generation. Energy and climate change policies are funded by a mixture of schemes and levies which place the financial obligation on energy companies. The energy companies then pass on the cost of these financial obligations onto the consumers.

Estimates of how these levies impact the public finances were published in Budget 2011. They include 2010-11 £0.7 billion from the Climate Change Levy and £0.6 billion from other environmental taxes, matched by a similar expenditure on these taxes.

According to DECC estimates, large energy users will notice an increase on business gas prices of 2% this year plus a 4% rise in 2020 .Business electricity prices are also on the rise with a whopping 12%-20% this year plus a 17% to 52% rise in 2020. These rises are all a result of the impact of energy and climate policy changes.

No wonders there are howls of protest from some sectors that the cost of all the government policies leading to this success is just too high. Putting it into context, from 2007 to 2009 business electricity prices for large industrial users, rose a staggering 45% and this was largely a result of volatile fossil fuel prices.

So if anyone is to blame for higher energy prices, is it the fossil fuel suppliers?

Plans for decarbonisation of the grid with the introduction of a Carbon Price Floor (CPF) starting at £16/tCO2 in 2013 and rising to £30/tCO2 in 2020 and £70/tCO2 in 2030 should bring more price stability and energy security for the UK.

If you would like more information on our range of Renewable 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 October 2011

Our monthly analysis of the UK gas and power markets is now available on line for the month of October 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 October 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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UK Spot Gas Prices Slip

Contradicting our predictions that UK gas prices would increase towards the end of the year they fell sharply on Monday, backed by a boost in supply from Norway and a reduction in exports to mainland Europe. However, strong dependence on LNG could still see prices rise as we head towards winter.

Britain is becoming strongly dependent on LNG supplies and according to market analysts, it will account for up to one quarter of total supply. Proof to that is the fact that in the second quarter, LNG imports overtook pipeline supplies for the first time. We’ll give you more information about that in another article.

Right now though UK gas prices are falling and this is due to the increase in supply from the Norwegian pipeline and a reduction in exports to continental Europe. On Monday, spot gas prices fell 2.25 pence at 42 pence-per-therm by 10.15 GMT, as the UK transmission market ran 10 million cubic meters/day long.

Yesterday gas for immediate delivery registered smaller losses due to forecasts of temperatures plunging again towards the seasonal average levels and gas traded at 43.25 pence per therm, down 1.75 pence on the previous day. We still don’t have Wednesday’s spot gas prices because at the time of writing markets were still closed.

Near and long-term contracts all registered losses on weak macro-economic indicators and softening Brent crude oil prices. This is despite news of Qatari LNG producer RasGas confirming it will shutdown seven LNG plants next year.

Front-month November contracts turned lower at 66.25 pence after trading 0.75 pence down and front-season summer 2012 gas contract shed 0.85 pence at 63.45 pence-per-therm in line with oil prices.

This is a great time for businesses who were considering revising their business gas contracts to do so now, before prices start to go up again as we head towards the cold season. Comparing business gas prices now and firming mid to long term contracts could mean potential savings throughout 2012.

UK electricity prices also registered significant drops early in the week and yesterday baseload power traded at 46.5 pounds per megawatt hour, down 1.25 pounds from previous sessions.

Make sure you don’t miss our next article where we’ll discuss in detail Britain’s dependence on LNG supplies.

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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