Control Energy Costs Case Studies

Historical Errors with Meter Readings

Our audit of supply invoices for a Major Hospital identified a number of errors in the read history for the meter serving their main boiler. This had been happening, intermittently, over a four-year period.

Having identified the errors, we were able to recover over £200,000 from the different suppliers involved. Steps were also taken to prevent the problem happening again.

Duplicated Charges

A printing firm upgraded one of their electricity supplies and found that their charges had doubled.

In fact what had happened was that they were being charged twice – the original account was still being invoiced based on manually read meter reads, with a new account having been created for the upgraded supply that was being billed on remotely collected data. This overcharge had been going on for five years, until we identified and corrected the problem.

We were able to recover the entire overcharge, which totalled approximately £120,000. Obviously, this had a huge impact on their projected costs and profitability.

Supply charged at the Wrong Voltage

Investigations into the characteristics of an electricity supply for an automotive engineering company revealed that although the client had previously used consultants to negotiate supply contracts, they had failed to spot the fact that DUoS charges were being based on the wrong voltage.

Our negotiations with their supplier resulted in their existing supply contract being re-negotiated back to its original start date, leading to a refund of almost £7000. In addition, they now have the ongoing benefit of lower underlying charges.

Wrong Conversion Factor Applied

Analysis of supply invoices for a School with multiple meters revealed that on several occasions, the advances on some of these meters had been incorrectly converted to kWh (billable consumption).

We challenged the supplier in question and secured a refund of £43,000 for the School.

Supply Contract based on incorrect Use of System Charges

Investigations into the characteristics of electricity supply for a large office block revealed that it had its own substation. On this basis, DUoS charges should have been based on less expensive LV substation tariff rates.

We were able to negotiate a backdated adjustment to DUoS charges, which resulted in a refund of £4000 for each year that the problem had existed. In addition, they now have a permanent on-going benefit from lower underlying charges.