How one of the UK’s largest care home groups saved big on energy with Clear Utility Solutions

Sister groups Runwood Homes and Sanders Senior Living are two of the leading care home providers across the UK. With over 150 sites and over 40 million kWh of usage across gas and electricity supplies, we’ve consistently brokered competitive prices on their energy utilities for the last two years.

With such a large multi-site account, we endeavoured to make their supplies as simple and as cheap as possible. From capacity reviews and co-terminus end dates for contracts, read on to find out how we simplified their energy and found them an extra £30,000 of savings over and above simply reducing their tariffs.

Saving money with capacity reviews

First, some context:

Some businesses pay an availability charge on their electricity supply, (also known as a capacity charge or available supply capacity), which is the cost of reserving enough power to ensure continuous supply for their business at peak times on the network. Capacity charges are levied daily and are commonly calculated in pence per kVa per day on a set maximum demand value, for example a maximum demand of 200kVa per day at 7.9p/kVa would add £15.80 to daily fixed charges.

Often businesses can have a higher capacity than needed, especially where they are occupying existing premises or repurposing a older building, so its always one of the first things we look at when we first start to work with a new client. 

For Runwood and Sanders, we managed to find them over £30,000 worth of savings yearly across their portfolio using this method.

Assessing supply capacity, deciding what's needed and what's not before rewriting connection agreements with DNOs can sound like a daunting and complicated task, but as energy experts it’s just the day to day for us. With Runwood and sanders we took the complicated and made it a simple and hassle free process.

As a bonus, reducing capacities can also have a knock on effect in reducing other network charges, and as these are slated to increase until at least 2031 we will continue the work we are doing to ensure maximum demand means maximum savings.

Saving time and stress with contract amalgamation

In the world of business, we appreciate just how much time is as valuable as money. With over 150 electricity and gas meters combined, both Sanders and Runwood were spending a lot of time on accounting and administrative work across many supplies with different contract end dates and suppliers.

As the two group’s broker, we procured new energy contracts that aligned contract start and end dates, compiling billing periods for smoother accounting, and reducing stress and admin time when renewing contracts.

For large businesses, this is one of the most effective ways we can streamline your operations, reduce labour spent on dealing with supplies and make your energy more efficient.

Dealing with suppliers so they didn’t have to

When it comes to having so many energy supplies, it’s not uncommon for our customers to run into an instance when they need to get in touch with their supplier. Our customer support team takes that stress away from Runwood and Sanders, we provide a single point of contact liaising with their suppliers so their team can focus on providing quality health care to their residents. And as we are always on the side of our client we get the outcomes they need.

Client Testimonial

Clear Utility Solutions have been paramount in smoothing out our energy contracts and taking the work away from our operations and team, even before they became our broker. They initially showed us the money they could save us on our electricity and gas, which was the reason we chose to go with them. They didn’t shy away from the administrative work our multi-sites needed, and were pro-active in looking at other ways they could save us money and consolidate our contracts to make our future energy easier. We rest assured knowing that we’re being taken care of by the team at Clear, so that we can take care of our residents. Sam Sanders - Sanders Senior Living / Runwood Homes

Why Choose Clear Utility Solutions?

Our team is proud to deliver better energy solutions for businesses across the UK. Whether reducing financial pressure by finding more affordable options, or making our customer’s operations easier through our post-contract support, we help to solve your energy problems with your business goals in mind.

Our sales agents endeavour to secure the best deals for you, and our customer support means you’ll always speak to a human. 

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