Analysing your energy bill
Use this guide to help you work out the energy consumption in your business.
On this page
Find out your energy consumption
1. Ask your energy suppliers if they can provide a graph of energy costs against months for the previous two years. Otherwise find your energy bills, preferably two years’ worth, and put them in date order.
2. Either on an Excel spreadsheet or on paper, complete a table with energy cost in one column and the month in another, and plot energy costs against months. From this you will be able to see when the energy cost has increased or decreased.
3. You then need to determine why this has occurred. Look back at that month’s energy bill: was an increase due to more units being consumed than in other months, or due to a rise in the tariff rates?
An increase in consumption?
You need to determine why the consumption has increased. Was it because:
- it was winter and heating was used
- there was an increase in the number of products made
- new equipment was installed
- there were other reasons?
Other useful comparisons are to plot your energy consumption against production output, or measure consumption each hour for 24 hours.
For further information contact your energy supplier, or EECA on (freephone) 0800 358 676.
Obtaining the best energy price
Is the increased cost is due to an increase in the tariff rate? Take the opportunity to talk with your existing electricity supplier and other suppliers, to identify the best pricing option for you.
Even if there has not been an increase in the unit cost or fixed daily charges, it may be worthwhile talking with the supplier: check that you paying the most cost-effective tariffs for your business.
Remember, tariffs will be made up from both unit costs and fixed charges. You will need to know what both are, in order to evaluate the best pricing option for your business.
As you progress with identifying opportunities for energy efficiency, also think about other possibilities: for example, can you undertakework at times of the day when lower energy charges (non-peak) are available?