Have you registered your Carbon Reduction Commitment yet?

Don’t forget that if your organisation has any half-hourly electricity meters that were in use in 2008 the deadline for registering under the new CRC scheme is 30th September 2010. Failure to do so will lead to a £500 fine per unregistered meter. If this applies to you, you might think this means you have over a month to get your paperwork completed, however, the scheme’s administrators have indicated that they will be checking the identities of all applicants before registering them under the scheme and that this will add at least two weeks to the application procedure Read more…

Auditel vs the Brokers – how our consultants can add real value to your business

David Gray (no, not the one with the guitar!) has been an Auditel consultant since 2008 and, like us at head office and a number of his colleagues, is a keen blogger. I keep a close eye on all the blogs posted by the Auditel network as they’re an excellent source of ideas and information but David’s latest post – The Auditel difference – really caught my eye as it clearly illustrates the very real difference between the long-term cost management service provided by an Auditel consultant and the short-term cost-cutting service provided by energy brokers. A highly recommended read.

Auditel achieve massive savings for local councils

One of our consultants, Jack Pokoj, dropped me an email yesterday after seeing my posting from Monday pop up on his Twitter account. He’s already working on a number of energy cost and purchase management projects for local authorities, sponsored by the regional improvement and efficiency partnership. So far he’s achieved annual savings of £235,000 for two councils with more still to come on a 3rd project.

Businesses face 26% energy bill rise

The Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, gave his first annual energy statement to Parliament yesterday. In his statement he predicted sharp energy price rises for UK businesses over the next 10 years as a result of various policies aimed at cutting the UK’s Co2 temissions.  Scary stuff! According to Mr Huhne, “The era of cheap, abundant energy is over. We must find smart ways of making energy go further, and value it for the costly resource it is, not take it for granted.”

Source: BBC News online

Are energy issues a board level concern in your organisation?

Many thanks to our colleague David Gray for letting us know about a series of podcasts NPower has put together in conjunction with the Major Energy Users Council (MEUC), aimed at helping organisations better understand four key energy issues. The topics covered are: ‘Security of Supply’, ‘Managing Energy purchasing’, ‘Managing Carbon Reduction’ and ‘Renewables’, all of which have significant cost implications and should be incorporated into business strategy.

As Wayne Mitchell, head of corporate sales at npower says,  “As staff issues have risen up the corporate agenda HR directors have taken a seat on the board and some are now even taking the step to appoint IT directors, but energy isn’t always a board priority.  We believe that time has come – energy now brings with it financial, carbon, operational and even reputational considerations that deserve board level attention, but we know that it’s not always clear exactly how such considerations affect the running of a business.”

Many organisations, large and small, already have bitter experience of rising energy costs over the last few years and, as we’ve seen from recent posts, energy companies are busy reviewing accounts to see if they can raise (in some cases very significant) back bills. Add to this the new burden of Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) compliance for organisations with half-hourly supplies, energy usage management, renewable and green energy issues and it’s not hard to see why so many organisations outsource responsibility for managing this complex and time-consuming business cost area to experts like Auditel.

Watch your back bills

Talking to a couple of our consultants this week it’s becoming clear that all the major energy companies are keen to claw in every penny they can in these hard times, which is why they have set up teams whose remit is to go back over business energy bills for up to 6 years. We’ve seen a number of cases in which these teams are generating new bills for old, and claiming tens of thousands of pounds from their business clients. The good news is that these bills are frequently wrong for a wide range of reasons so, if you know what you’re doing, you can get them reduced or even cancelled. At Auditel, of course, we do know what we’re doing and have good contacts and relationships with all the major energy suppliers so have had great results for our clients caught in this trap.

For example, one of our clients, the owner of luxury holiday home parks in north Wales, received a £57,000 back bill for one site dating back to 2004, when they acquired it. A thorough investigation revealed a number of billing and administration errors which, when coupled with some tough face-to-face negotiation with the supplier,  brought the invoice down to £21,000, an overall reduction of 63%. Another, food distribution, client received a final bill for a site they had moved out of 15 months previously. The bill was demanding just over £32,000 based on the fact that the energy company had misread the meter for the 5 years our client was in the building. However, after much  time-consuming negotiation we were able to halve this demand.