Small Business Energy Bill Support

RichHill91

I have just taken on a local community cafe as a client. Upon our first meeting they told me about their latest energy bill of over £30,000 for the month. 

Now, energy bills are not my area for helping but with the amount of support this business gives to our local community i wanted to help. I'm currently exploring options for them however I thought reaching out may be a good option. 

ComicGeek

£30k/month would be pretty extraordinary for a cafe. Someone's either got that wrong or it's a balancing payment against previous usage and therefore not representative of monthly costs moving forward.

They/you could quite easily get an energy consultant in to review how they're currently using energy, review their existing energy contracts, and make recommendations for improving. If it's truely a community cafe then you may find local consultants willing to donate few hours of their time for a coffee and slice of cake.

Look at CIBSE members first if possible as they will have the general skill set needed. Annoyingly only companies who pay can be searched through the CIBSE website, but if you search for energy consultants local to you that would be a good start.

RichHill91

ComicGeek said:

£30k/month would be pretty extraordinary for a cafe. Someone's either got that wrong or it's a balancing payment against previous usage and therefore not representative of monthly costs moving forward.

They/you could quite easily get an energy consultant in to review how they're currently using energy, review their existing energy contracts, and make recommendations for improving. If it's truely a community cafe then you may find local consultants willing to donate few hours of their time for a coffee and slice of cake.

Look at CIBSE members first if possible as they will have the general skill set needed. Annoyingly only companies who pay can be searched through the CIBSE website, but if you search for energy consultants local to you that would be a good start.

thank you. after some more investigation it was what you thought in regards to a balancing payment. I've ran some figures and calculated an estimated usage for a week and the numbers don't add up (my estimates are they should be paying £17-£20k a year on current usage) so i believe perhaps the starting readings may be wrong. is that something that could be possible?

I'll defiantly look into an energy consultant, a great idea. thank you for the info, it was a great help!

tightauldgit

Is this a new contract or a new lease? Always possible that the starting reading may be wrongly recorded but it should be documented somewhere either at the start of the contract or the start of a lease and if there's a previous provider/tenant they should have a record of the exit reading. You'd really have to dig in a bit more to the record of readings and charges - it would be unusual for a bill of £30k to suddenly appear from nowhere but has it been building up for a while?

calypso_rhapsody

Sorry to jump on the post but i have an involvement with a pub restaurant whose current electricity bills are of the order of £4k a month - a fixed price contract from March 23 but agreed in autumn 22.  Would have been better to wait as it turns out.  the 'adviser' who recommended this deal in autumn 22 is now trying to get them to agree another fix starting next March and saying that prices may well go up again by then.  I am sceptical but struggling to find any reliable forecasts (though i admit that i have not yet trawled through the Ofgem site as much seems to be about the domestic price cap).  Any thoughts or advice?

Grumpy_chap

RichHill91 said:

I have just taken on a local community cafe as a client. Upon our first meeting they told me about their latest energy bill of over £30,000 for the month. 

Now, energy bills are not my area for helping but with the amount of support this business gives to our local community i wanted to help. I'm currently exploring options for them however I thought reaching out may be a good option. 

The idea of an energy consultant as others have suggested is a good one, but I suspect the commercial fees would be far outside the reach of a community cafe so it would be necessary to find either a charity that can provide this service or an individual willing to provide the support pro-bono.

Given the lack of confidence in meter data, the first thing any energy consultant will need is a period of reliable meter data and sub-meter data from which recommendations can be made.  There may be obvious steps that an energy consultant can suggest simply by looking at what is installed but that may well be no more than an average person can comment in any case.