British Gas, the UK’s biggest energy supplier to small commercial property firms has recently launched a free service to help small and medium-sized enterprises across the country become more aware of their “invisible” energy use; therefore subsequently cutting their bills by 50 per cent.
The free service, called ‘Business Energy Insight’ will allow British Gas business customers that have smart meters to analyse their energy usage via a user friendly online dashboard, which is updated every half an hour.
British Gas said the service could cut 10 per cent off an average commercial property electricity bill, before the business needs to consider investing in energy efficient measures. The service build on British Gas’ smart meter rollout, which to date has seen 200,000 devices installed across its business customer base. The energy supplier said it plans to double that number across its existing 650,000 commercial property business customers by the end of 2012.
Research backed by the company last year revealed the Green Deal for business could be worth £800m by 2020. Head of energy consultancy at British Gas Business, Dr Angela Needle is now keen to develop the new service so that it merges with the Government financing scheme.
She added: “We have around 650,000 business customers and one million supply points, so the opportunity is huge. We’re heavily involved in making the Green Deal work for businesses and smart meter data will be a big part of that.”
New released data taken by British Gas from 6,940 energy meters between February 2010 and November 2011 showed that almost £1 in every £2 of electricity is being spent by commercial property businesses outside of the normal working hours of 8am and 6pm.
The analysis revealed commercial property firms were running up largely unnecessary bills by lighting empty car parks, offices and shop displays, as well as leaving IT equipment and vending machines on overnight and at weekends. Commercial property pubs are also wasting energy by keeping fruit machines switched on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In one case, Needle said a company was able to cut its annual energy bill by £1200 after analysing its smart meter data and working out it was wasting electricity on a car park, where the lights were being left on over the weekend.
This backs other industry research that shows small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are wasting electricity without need. A survey last year by energy company E.ON, for example, suggests energy inefficiency could be costing UK commercial property SMEs £7.7 billion a year.
British Gas hopes that by using its free ‘Business Energy Insight’ initiative, SMEs can keep track of when and where they are using electricity in order to save money on their energy bills.
User-friendly tool
The Business Energy Insight online dashboard will allow customers to view electricity usage on an hourly, daily, weekly and monthly basis. Following behavioural research with a panel of 1000 commercial property business customers, British Gas has adapted the tool so it provides energy data in pounds, as well as kilowatts.
Needle said: “We’ve designed the system so that people can understand the data without having to be experts.”
British Gas is not the first energy supplier to offer an enhanced smart meter to its customers. Small energy company First Utility was the first provider to roll out smart meters to UK customers and, it too, provides an online tool for clients to view their daily energy consumption and monthly bills.
Furthermore, the British Gas service does not provide a detailed breakdown of energy usage across commercial office, room or indeed equipment, something some experts say is necessary to really enable commercial property businesses to make meaningful changes to their behaviour.
However Needle pointed out the that in order to help commercial property SMEs gain more control over their electricity bills, 100 account executives have been trained to support the new service and will be on hand on recommend a wide variety of energy saving measures, ranging from solar panels and insulation to energy efficient lighting.
British Gas is now looking to apply its Business Energy Insight to gas consumption. In the future, the energy supplier is also looking to introduce other services such as a benchmarking tool so that commercial property businesses can compare how they perform against other commercial property businesses in the same trade or profession.
Rebuilding Trust
The new service is also a means for the energy provider to restore trust with its commercial property customers. As one of the Big Six energy suppliers, British Gas has come under strong criticism for rocketing energy prices and lack of transparency in its billing, amongst other things.
Needle said: “We want to be upfront and clear and want customers to trust us and choose to stay with us.”
Any commercial property business, whatever its size can sign up to the new service which is free and comes with no strings attached.
For those with a smart meter, it takes around 28 days to join, whereas it takes three to six months for those that need a smart meter fitted.
