The leadership team in large organisations are investing money on creating more sales and revenue than focusing on energy cost reductions.

Citing a poll conducted at the Energy Live Future event yesterday, Gab Barbaro, Managing Director at British Gas Business said there is a business case for investing in technologies currently available on the market to cut energy costs and improve efficiency.

Around 38% of the large energy end users surveyed said convincing their leadership team to invest in new technologies is one of the biggest challenges they face.

Mr Barbaro told ELN: “The feedback from the room was that even though the technology might be available and we can get a great business case, sometimes the leadership of large organisations is looking to spend any incremental investment money they have on things that will help grow the business – anything that creates more sales, more revenue, rather than focusing on cost reduction – even though the business case and the technologies are now available.

“What we’re finding is there are a lot more incentives available on the market, whether through distribution, network operators or national grid – the transmission – and system operators that are available, that if businesses can have great flexibility, they can export back into the market and that demand side response or that export of energy can actually create revenue for them, make the business resilient and create revenue. The other thing that seriously looking at your energy infrastructure does is that making the right choices mean that businesses may improve the production.”

He said British Gas Business worked with a large building materials cement business to install sensors in its operations, which helped save around £200,000.

The poll also revealed reducing energy costs of their organisations is the biggest challenge for around 38% of large energy user.

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