How to make energy regulations work for your business

The pace of change is accelerating for Britain's energy-intensive businesses, with new regulations coming thick and fast from Ofgem, the UK government and the EU. David Topping, E.ON's Director of Corporates, explores what's driving these initiatives and explains how E.ON is helping its customers navigate the changes.

We're often told by our large business customers that regulatory change is now a real burden. Many new obligations are being introduced for both customers and suppliers, and industry regulations – which may be both confusing and time-consuming to manage – are likely to have a direct impact on your day-to-day operations.

However, these developments are not without benefits. Some could change for the better the way you interact with your supplier, or how you manage your energy consumption. Smart meters, for example, and other technological advances, are leading to significant improvements in energy handling as the quantity and quality of the available data increase.

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While there are countless individual regulatory adjustments, they share three common themes:

Demand-side response

As smart meters and automated meter readings (AMR) arrive in an increasing number of British homes and business premises, consumers will have more information than ever before about how and when they use energy. Many of the new regulations address the ways in which that information can be used by customers – large corporations and small businesses alike – to change their consumption patterns and benefit by cutting either direct payments or reduced third-party costs, while also helping the networks ensure that supply meets demand.

Efficiency

The EU is stepping up pressure to improve energy efficiency and cut CO2 emissions – not just for us as energy suppliers, but also for customers. The efficiency drive will introduce new obligations for customers and suppliers to disclose information about energy consumption, and, for some customers, new requirements such as the Energy Savings Opportunities Scheme (ESOS), which will force some businesses to carry out energy audits and consider practical efficiency recommendations.

Transparency

Both suppliers and customers may soon have to contend with new rules intended to increase transparency in the market through mandatory routine reporting of information on supply, purchases and contracts for some very high-consuming customers. One example is REMIT (EU Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency), which creates a framework for identifying and penalising market abuse across Europe, giving consumers, the industry and other participants confidence that wholesale energy prices are open, fair and competitive – principles that constitute the foundations of an effective energy market.

At E.ON we're committed to helping our customers understand and manage the impact of these changes on their business. This is how we go about it:

• When regulatory changes are issued to us for consultation before a decision is reached, it's important that we reflect in our responses not only the impact on ourselves, but also our customers
• In 2014 we took some of our customers with us to see Ofgem so they could get an update on REMIT
• We let our customers know when new regulations mean that the way we bill or service their account, or agree their next contract, will change
• Our dedicated account managers work with our customers to make sure they fully understand what's changing and why
• We've introduced new propositions, such as our Energy Toolkit, to help customers monitor their energy consumption and use that information to create energy plans
• We offer end-to-end solutions to help our customers comply with new regulation – for example, with ESOS we can help from the initial assessment through to recommending efficiency savings and installing new equipment. ESOS assessments are provided by Matrix, in partnership with the Carbon Trust, and a site survey could identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption, creating significant savings for the business.

Click here to find out more or call us on 0330 400 1722.