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Woah! Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted! As tempting as it is to continue with the theme, we’d better cut to the chase!

Smart Meters are arriving as we speak. The DECC (Dept. of Energy & Climate Change) talk in terms of: 160,000 05‐08 profile electricity meters and 40,000 large gas meters (732 MWhs). These are all supposed to be replaced by 2014 and guess what, DECC and OFGEM are still discussing with energy suppliers the type and capability of the meters to be used, it’s that ‘VHS vs. BETAMAX’ debate all over again.

Worse still some suppliers (and we’re including the ‘big six’ in this) have seen this as some sort of opportunity to tie businesses into long‐term metering contracts, making it difficult to change suppliers come supply contract renewal time, and making spurious claims about ‘interoperability with other suppliers’ meters’.

Lets be clear there may be some technical issues, however, commercial restrictions are certainly not acceptable, and these views we believe are endorsed by the DECC. To make matters worse, there are instances of energy suppliers ringing business customers and telling them they must have a new smart meter by next April…it’s simply not true.

Our advice right now is ‘Hold Your Horses!’ be very careful about any Smart Meter arrangements, get Torse to check things out first…

Many businesses have reacted angrily to last week’s announcement regarding the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and the new ‘green stealth tax’.

Following George Osborne’s speech at the Comprehensive Spending Review, it now appears promised rewards for improved energy efficiency generated from CRC participants will no longer be returned back to high performing organisations. Instead the government will pocket an anticipated £1 billion per year, totaling £3.46 billion between 2010 and 2015. Within the new cap‐and‐trade scheme, organisations are required to purchase CO2 allowances at a cost of £12 per tonne of CO2 emitted, coming at a considerable expense to some organisations.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE GREEN TAX

Torse has recently been in contact with the Environmental Technology Centre [ETC], a research institute at Nottingham University. The primary focus of the ETC is to provide a service to Small to Medium sized businesses whereby they are able to provide up to 5 days energy usage analysis of a business in terms of their premises and practices with a report featuring advice and recommendations at the end of this process.

READ MORE ABOUT ETC AND TORSE

We frequently see suppliers hauled over the coals in the media, albeit usually the domestic market. However, what’s causing much consternation is the fact that despite some legislative changes at the smaller end of the SME ‘Micro Business’ market, the business energy market seems in thrall still to the new energy oligopoly. (see www.torse.co.uk/pirates-energy-companies/ ). It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, an industry with fundamental barriers to entry, big players, weak governance and little legislation has enabled the Energy companies to take a fairly cynical stance towards their markets.
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