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

The Government has passed legislation requiring all suppliers to replace both Electricity and Gas meters with automatic meters for all (but the smallest) businesses by 6th April 2010. It might sound a long way away, but they will have to change 200,000 meters.

Guess who pays? The government has allowed suppliers to pass on all the costs to businesses. This will be either through your supply contract (much the same as it is for most businesses at the moment) or a separate AMR Metering contract. This will inevitably cause some confusion when Renewing or changing your Gas and Electricity supply contracts; the business or whoever looks after your Energy Supply arrangements will generally be able to assist in this area. This information really belongs to the business and so you can sort out all your own metering arrangements and not just keep paying the supplier.

continue

Smart Metering is in the news today and the BBC have produced an overview of how a smart meter works in addition to their discussion on how much you can save with a smart meter. Whilst these refer to the domestic market, there is significant relevance for the business market also.

It’s a familiar story; if you can’t measure it or see it, it can be hard to do anything about it. It seems unlikely that energy prices will reduce over time, and this combined with the focus on Carbon Reduction Commitment for all, should make this a very real issue for most businesses.

Empirical research suggests that simply monitoring consumption, improves awareness and typically consumption will fall. Thus at the most basic level smart metering will help. What Smart metering will do above and beyond the basics for business is provide, up to date accurate information about their consumption.
continue