News Archive - Monthly Archives: January 2020

EM-Powered – the secret weapon in managing your energy costs

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To reduce energy consumption and consequently your company’s energy bills, you first need to have a very good understanding of your energy profile.

Energy Management’s energy monitoring and reporting portal, EM-Powered, assists companies in compiling an instant overview of their organisation’s actual energy consumption, predicted energy consumption and peak loads in an easily downloadable report.

Especially useful for multi-site operators and energy-intensive industries, the portal can be adapted to suit an individual company’s needs.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the benefits:

  • Accurate financial reporting – incorporates budget management tools, cost and consumption break downs. Management reports can also be downloaded for an overview of all activities. Ideal for board-level reporting.
  • Market forward pricing – We provide live forward and historic market trading prices. These prices can then be compared between specific dates, or alternatively can be expanded to show a high-level overview. The portal provides the ability to set multiple price notification triggers and alerts. These alerts will then be either sent via SMS or email to the user. Invaluable for flex contract management.
  • Seasonal comparison tables – Market charges can then be compared in table form, giving the customer an accurate and concise method to measure market fluctuations. The system provides you with the current position, and with a comparison to the previous day, week, month, quarter, 6-month and 1-year prices. In addition, you have the ability to choose specific dates, forward or backward, to compare prices over any given time.
  • Market Intelligence Updates – Customers are provided with a daily market intelligence update. The portal will update 3 times a day providing them with the live day ahead, month ahead and 2-month ahead prices. There will be a short commentary of why prices have fallen/risen, along with prices on Brent Crude and EU ETS Carbon, as both have an impact on UK wholesale electricity cost.
  • Daily Updates – Daily news updates are provided within the portal which gives an understanding of current geopolitical factors which may influence the market.

More information about EM-Powered can be found here.

Energy Procurement – the key things to consider

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With so many external factors determining the price of the fuel we pay, from international trade disputes to extremes of weather, procuring gas and electricity at the right price and at the right time can seem like a daunting task at times.

Here, we list some of the key things you need to consider before entering into negotiations with energy suppliers.

Be pro-active

Prices can fluctuate wildly in a matter of hours so extra vigilance when it comes to monitoring markets is key. What seems like a good deal one minute may not be so good the next; nobody has a crystal ball so set triggers/alarms in your monitoring process to minimise risk.

Having access to software such as EM-Powered, our bespoke energy management portal, certainly helps in this respect.

Time of contract

It’s important to get familiar with your Contract End Date so you can weigh up your options well before it is time to put pen to paper on a new deal.

You can fix a contract in advance depending on the level of budget certainty you want. Doing this ensures guaranteed payments, or alternatively, you may wish to choose a flexible contract to access market-reflective prices and gain potential rewards.

Signing a Purchase Power Agreement, for example, is a great way to get ahead of your competitors, showcase your commitment to sustainability, and plan for risks while leveraging value for your organisation.

Terms and conditions

Get down to the detail and ensure the terms and conditions are suitable for your business, otherwise unwanted penalty charges may occur, or you could be locked into a contract that no longer works for you. Volume Tolerances and Max/Min thresholds are two examples of areas that can get overlooked.

Invoice validation

Check your supplier bills are correct. On average, 20% of them are wrong, amounting to 5% of the overall bill value, simply because data may have been entered incorrectly. Only pay for what you use!

Negotiate

Remember, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. It’s a simple adage but one that rings true in all facets of a business. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this because of a lack of expertise in energy procurement, you can always employ an external energy management consultancy to get the best deal on your behalf.

EVs sales hit record high in 2019

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More electric cars were registered in the UK during 2019 than any other year to date, as diesel car registrations fell by more than one-fifth on a year-on-year basis – but EVs still make up a very small percentage of overall car sales (1.6% market share).

That is according to new industry data released today (6 January) by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMTT).

The data reveals that the number of new car registrations fell by 2.4% between 2018 and 2019 – a trend the SMTT attributes, in part, to environmental concerns and anticipation around incoming clean air legislation. The largest fall was recorded in diesel cars – 21.8% fewer were registered in 2019 than in 2018.

While noting that registration of new petrol vehicles rose slightly (2.2%) on a year-on- year basis, the SMTT’s data reveals far more rapid growth in the electric car space, with year-on-year registrations up 144%. The figure covers solely fully electric vehicles. 6

Hybrid electric vehicles, meanwhile, experienced a 17.1% year-on-year registration increase, despite Government cuts to the Plug-In Car Grant (PICG) scheme.

The SMTT said in a statement, “While the huge increase in battery electric vehicle demand is welcome, their 1.6% market share is still tiny and underlines the progress needed to reach the 50-70% share the government envisages in the next 10 years The body has additionally voiced concerns that the national car market experienced its third consecutive annual decline in 2019, which it attributes to “weak business and consumer confidence, general political and economic instability and confusion over clean air zones.”

It is calling for more national policies to buck this trend in the face of Brexit, claiming that Government action is crucial to unlocking further investment in the electric vehicle (EV) transition.

“A stalling market will hinder industry’s ability to meet stringent new CO2 targets and, importantly, undermine wider environmental goals,” SMTT chief executive Mike Hawes said. “We urgently need more supportive policies: investment in infrastructure; broader measures to encourage uptake of the latest, low and zero- emission cars; and long-term purchase incentives to put the UK at the forefront of this technological shift.

“Industry is playing its part with a raft of exciting new models in 2020 and compelling offers but consumers will only respond if economic confidence is strong and the technology affordable.”

Of the 90 new car models due to launch in the UK in 2020, the SMTT has listed 23 as fully electric and 11 as plug-in-hybrids.

The findings from the SMTT come after Dyson axed its electric car project, which would have seen a new model manufactured and assembled in the UK, ready for a 2021 launch. Similarly, hybrid and fully electric models sold in the UK by the likes of Nissan, BMW and Vauxhall are now manufactured or assembled – either in full or in part – outside of the UK.

As sales grow, who takes ownership of charging capacity is a question that largely remains unaswered.

If you would like to know more about our EV infrastructure installation service, please visit our dedicated page by clicking HERE.

Article source: Edie.net