by Jonathan Gardiner | Oct 24, 2014 | Energy
NZ Hothouse is one of New Zealand’s largest privately-owned commercial growing and logistics operations. With over 300 staff, 20 hectares of glass houses across two sites and pack houses on a further two sites, the cost of gas and electricity to support operations represents a significant cost to the business. Consumption of natural gas well outstrips electricity usage, with gas-heated glass houses (the C0₂ from the burning process is also used to enrich the growing atmosphere), gas used to heat pack houses and LPG gas exchange cylinders fuelling the business forklift fleet.
“We wouldn’t go into an RFP without Total Utilities. Gas is one of our largest expenses and Total Utilities have handled our last four contract negotiations. They’ve managed to deliver significant savings every time,” said Managing Director, Simon Watson.
“This year, acting on their analysts’ advice, we went to market six months early as part of a large buying group. The savings we ended up with amounted to a six-figure sum.”
“We had offers from five or six suppliers. The ones that were attractive up-front often turned out not to be as good as they looked. It’s important to really understand the contract terms and conditions, be aware of the pitfalls and be able to cut through the smoke and mirrors. Total Utilities prepare a report that really compares ‘like with like’. That makes it easy for us to come to the right decision with the confidence that we are getting the best possible deal.”
Find out more about how Jonathan and the team at Total Utilities can help you to save on gas or other utilities.
by chris | Sep 5, 2014 | Energy
Price is not king when it comes to managing utilities and getting the best from your investment. Businesses typically overlook the strong relationship between purchasing prices, consumption and utilisation efficiency. Focusing on cost per unit without analysing the way in which utilities are consumed can result in businesses paying more and getting less value.
Total Utilities provides an end-to-end approach to utility optimisation across electricity, natural gas/LPG, trade waste and ICT. This starts with strategic, proactive purchasing but it doesn’t end there. We focus on key business drivers like controlling cost and consumption – and report back on usage trends, exceptions and changes, provide budgeting advice for the future and remove the need for manual bill-checking. These deliverables should be underpinned by a proactive energy audit of any new premises to ensure that these meet best practise from day one.
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by chris | Sep 1, 2014 | Energy
Electricity price rises are coming from the regulated parts of the industry, writes Chris Hargreaves in the Sunday Star Times 31 August 2014.
Rod Oram’s recent comments in the Sunday Star Times and on National Radio were critical of the current market prices for retail energy and the way in which increased profits were distributed to shareholders by generators and retailers – rather than being used to bring retail pricing down.
While Rod’s comments bear thinking about, his analysis failed to take into account market changes over the past few years – and the considerable impact of key pricing factors such as transmission and distribution charges (both of which are regulated and out of the control of retail providers).
Rod Oram also appears unaware of the significant reductions in energy prices that have benefitted commercial users of electricity in the past. Total Utilities Management Group has seen reductions averaging 20% on recent contracts since the last quarter of 2012 as both generators and retailers have rebalanced their regional and commercial portfolios in response to changes in generation capacity, lower demand and increased regional competition.
Electricity pricing in New Zealand is far from transparent. This leads to uncertainty around how invoiced prices are derived and means that changes to the various cost elements can be difficult to police. This uncertainty can muddy the water when talking about the historical cost of contestable energy prices.
The Electricity Authority recently released a Statistics New Zealand survey covering historical retail residential pricing with figures backed up by the MBIE. (more…)
by RichardGardiner | Aug 4, 2014 | Energy, ICT
An automated utilities monitoring service has been developed by Total Utilities to assist High Schools and Colleges spending more than $100,000/year on electricity, gas or computing and telecoms.
The new monitoring service will simplify financial management of utilities by generating and displaying usage reports to help identify trends. This will allow School Business Managers to quickly pinpoint any issues and will make investment and strategy decision-making more accurate, according to Mike Ette of Total Utilities.
“Many High Schools and Colleges struggle with the financial management of their utilities,” said Mike. “It’s difficult to know if you are getting value from these services if they are not monitored and measured. Once Business Managers can identify trends, it becomes easy to ask key questions like – is the usage increase in line with changes in the school? Or – nothing has changed so why is usage going up?” (more…)
by RichardGardiner | Aug 4, 2014 | Energy
Schools pay less for power by going to the market in bulk tenders which attract contract offers from multiple power suppliers. In the first six months of this year, Total Utilities has helped a group of seventeen schools save more than $350,000 on their renegotiated power contracts. This represents an average saving of almost $14,500 or 18% per school.
The bulk tender process was managed by procurement specialists, Total Utilities. All the school business managers had to do was supply details of their previous contract and weigh up the offers when they came in.
New Plymouth Girls High School was one of the participating schools and business manager Tony Pugh is delighted with the result. “This is our third contract negotiation with Total Utilities and we’ve saved money every time,” Tony explained. “This year we cut our power costs by 24% by getting more suppliers interested in quoting for our business and making the most of favourable contract terms.”
In the past Tony has had difficulties attracting such a wide range of offers. “It’s important to present the information to suppliers using the right language in order to get the best result – it can be very time-consuming to manage the process. Total Utilities was able to present us with eight offers from different suppliers, lay them out on a single page and recommend the best contract to us – based on dollars and contract terms.” (more…)
by chris | Apr 9, 2014 | Energy
Vector and United Networks are shifting away from a volume-based pricing methodology in favour of a peak demand weighted tariff structure.
From April 1st, large customers in Central and South Auckland will see little advantage in seasonal Summer Day prices as these are aligned to a reduced Winter Day rate/kWh while the demand tariff will increase by 12.8%. North and West Auckland customers on non-demand time of use metered load groups will be transitioned over to a new pricing plan that includes a peak demand charge.
Added to this is the continuation of the stepped increase to the Power Factor tariff. Customers with reactive load problems will be in for even bigger charges as the rate per reactive unit increases from $2.00/unit to $8.00/unit. Based on discussions with the energy retailers, this charge will again be increased to $17.50/unit from April 1 next year.
What does this mean?
For Central and South Auckland customers with non-seasonal based peak demands with small Power Factor issues could see overall network cost increases of greater than 9.5%. For a similar North or West Auckland customer being transitioned onto the time of use metered load group with demand charges this increase could be greater than 15%. (more…)
