John Leonard, a Project Manager at Wessex Water sees a more equal relationship between reducing consumption and increasing efficiency as becoming the norm in the energy industry. “In our business, if you’re more efficient, you’ll reduce your consumption.”

“It’s generally regarded in the energy industry as the number one thing. If you reduce your consumption you’ll pay less. The more efficient you are, ergo the better you are overall.”

As an energy manager, Mr Leonard says that energy buying has become much more strategic and important for large companies.

He told ELN: “Fundamentally it’s all about understanding what you’re consuming, so the more automation you can put into the process of collecting data the better.”

“The more advanced monitoring and targeting techniques you can put together the better picture you’ve got of what you’re consuming. As soon as you’ve got that you’re quite a way towards understanding what your procurement strategy needs to look like.”