New guidelines for businesses to manage energy usage

A new code of conduct with clear and easy guidelines to help businesses manage and cut their energy bills and take efficient measures is underway. The Energy Managers Association (EMA) […]

A new code of conduct with clear and easy guidelines to help businesses manage and cut their energy bills and take efficient measures is underway.

The Energy Managers Association (EMA) and its partner companies will be writing the guidelines in a “standardised” way for what it calls Energy Performance Contracting (EnPC).

Lord Redesdale (pictured), CEO of the EMA told ELN: “We believe that energy prices are going to double over the next five years in this country. If you’re a business and you’re not taking your energy seriously you’ve got real problems. An energy performance contract is a way that somebody else meets the financial cost of upgrading and reducing all your kit, making it more efficient, reducing the amount of energy you use and you pay for it out of the savings.”

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker showed his support by video message saying: “There is no doubt in my mind about the huge opportunity for Energy Performance Contracting to unlock energy savings but I am regularly told that a key barrier to its greater uptake is the lack of standardised contracts, undermining confidence in the market.

“For this reason I am extremely encouraged by the stakeholder-led approach of the Energy Managers Association, working with customers and suppliers to develop guidelines for Energy Performance Contracts together with a system of self-regulation. I am strongly in favour of market solutions before resorting to requirements that may tend towards a one size fits all strategy.”

The EnPC industry is believed to be worth $10 billion (£6.4bn) in the US but only around £300 million in the UK due to the lack of standardisation here. The EMA believes once the standards are in place, it could be a “massive growth area” in the global low carbon sector which is expected to be worth $4 trillion (£2.6tn) by 2015.

Latest Podcast