Rising energy prices: what can your business do?

Costs are increasing for all organisations, across most of their supply chain, however it seems that a common area of concern is the cost of energy and how to manage this.

We, as an energy supply partner, are supporting businesses through these challenging times and helping them to think about the energy price challenge in the most appropriate way.

Manage your consumption

In the current market, it’s very hard for businesses to save on their energy spend, so careful planning and budgeting is key for all businesses. As a first step, it’s essential to understand how much energy your business consumes.

Having a clear view of your consumption patterns, using solutions such as smart metering and sub-metering, can help you identify trends and key areas for reduction. By controlling where and when you use energy, you could see some reductions in overall costs by simply using less.

Taking a more considered approach to how your business uses energy is important, but you also need to understand the type of energy contract you are buying.

Are fixed-price tariffs better?

A fixed-price contract provides you with price certainty for a set period of time. For many small to mid-sized businesses, and indeed certain larger organisations, certainty is important, and a fixed contract will enable you to tightly budget your energy spend.

It’s worth noting that this certainty comes at a premium, as the supplier takes on all of the market risk. And it’s essential that you fully understand the terms and conditions of your agreement, to be clear on how fixed the contract really is, as in some cases suppliers have clauses that allow them to claw back increased costs.

Be flexible

Some larger or more experienced businesses will have the ability to buy energy through flexible price contracts, where they will ‘hedge’ their energy purchases over periods of time.

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