A company who’s job it is to recover energy costs for businesses have warned that millions are being lost each year due to Transmission Network Use of System (TNUoS) charges.
PCMG, a cost management consultancy, claim that seven figure sums are being lost due to a 160% rise in TNUoS charges since 2010.
The TNUoS costs incurred by businesses is due to the charges imposed to transport electricity over long distances.
Making up around 6% of of the total energy bill businesses will receive, TNUoS charges are calculated by the distances energy has to travel from national to regional networks.
Yet, rather than gauge usage over the entire year, PCMG claim these charges are worked out ‘when demand across the system is at its highest between November and the end of February’.
Will Stephens, Senior Energy Analyst at PCMG, said: “TNUoS charges have increased astronomically in the last 15 years. For high energy users, from manufacturing firms to cold storage companies, or just those with multiple sites, it can be a huge cost, representing a big chunk of the energy bill.”
He added: “TNUoS charges are based on looking at the three peak half hour periods, known as Triads, of energy use from November to the end of February and then the charge for each business is based on those periods.
“Typically Triad periods occur most often in December and January, between 17:00 and 18:30 when the tea time rush combines with the commercial demand. The measures have to be 10 days apart and often weather and temperature can play a part.”
According to PCMG, businesses can bring down TNUoS costs by looking at when energy is used.
“We’ve worked with clients on electricity management to radically reduce or even bring TNUoS to a zero cost,” Will said.
“This can be done through predicting when the Triad periods are likely to fall and then looking at energy usage during these peak periods, shutting down processes in the peak energy use period.
“Key to this is having access to real time data showing what you use and then putting in place an effective energy management process, even shift to onsite generation if you can, to ensure you aren’t putting load on the system during a peak period.”
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