Guest Blog: Wayne Mitchell on fixing your energy costs

A new opportunity to control energy costs While the commodity element of energy bills is not forecast to increase dramatically over the next decade, the share of policy-related costs is […]

A new opportunity to control energy costs

While the commodity element of energy bills is not forecast to increase dramatically over the next decade, the share of policy-related costs is set to grow and push bills ever upward. The key requirement for business consumers now is to control these costs, otherwise it’s feared that profitability – and for those that export, international competitiveness – could suffer.

As we await the final details on Electricity Market Reform from DECC, we are gearing up to once again share with customers what the likely impact of these forthcoming measures will be in terms of rising costs.

Our Policy Team are busy working through the finer points and forecasting future bill scenarios. We will then be sharing these with some of our major energy users at a Round Table event in mid July, and with a wider customer base via a webinar shortly afterwards.

Need for budgetary certainty

In the meantime, we are responding to the growing appetite for greater budgetary certainty among business consumers, and this week are promoting a product which we are told offers a very comforting prospect: Fixed Certainty.

Fixed Certainty, as the name suggests, offers a fixed unit cost for both the commodity and also many of the non-commodity elements involved in your energy supply. While future EMR costs are not yet included – as these cannot be accurately forecast until final details are released – key existing policy-related charges such as the Renewables Obligation and Feed in Tariff are covered. Many of National Grid’s and your local distribution network operator’s fees are also included.

Guard against future reconciliations

Customers have told us this is a very attractive option, especially as non-commodity costs on bills can now include up to 16 different government environmental taxes, some of which have varied hugely against forecast in the past and landed consumers with hefty reconciliation charges.

Fixed Certainty guarantees no reconciliation charges from the policy-related, network or distribution elements it includes. The only extras are those that have to be charged separately as a government-mandated requirement, such as VAT and the Climate Change Levy. If you are using a third-party meter operator or data aggregator, their fees are also charged on a pass-through basis.

Pin down commodity costs

There is also the opportunity to just fix the commodity element of your bill via an option called Fixed Commodity. You then pay all the non-commodity extras on a pass-through basis, although can choose to fix either the Renewables Obligation or the Feed in Tariff within this contract choice.

Fixed Certainty and Fixed Commodity are currently available for electricity contracts, but will also be available for gas from next month. Additional features include renewable at no extra cost for electricity supply, which can help support the growing business appetite for enhancing environmental credentials. Various other benefits also come as standard, so if want to know more, I suggest you visit our website to find out more.

This is a sponsored article.

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