Business Energy
Flexibility: What It Means for Business Energy Costs
A business electricity bill is not one number. Understanding which parts respond to flexibility is the difference between a marginal saving and a meaningful one.
By Kettle Energy, Commercial team6 min read
Most efforts to reduce a commercial electricity bill focus on consumption: better lighting, more efficient plant, switching things off. Those are worthwhile, but they attack only one component of the bill. On many sites, a significant share of cost is driven by the highest half-hour of demand rather than the total.
The parts of a business bill
- Commodity — the wholesale cost of the electricity itself, driven by volume and by when it is used.
- Network charges — including capacity and distribution costs that depend on peak demand.
- Levies and policy costs — largely fixed per unit.
- Supplier margin and metering.
Efficiency work reduces the first item. Flexibility reduces the first and the second, because it changes both when electricity is bought and how high the site's peak draw goes.
What storage does on a commercial site
- Charges overnight or during solar surplus, when unit costs are lowest.
- Discharges during the site's own demand peak, shaving the maximum drawn from the network.
- Provides a measurable reduction in both cost per unit and peak capacity requirement.
“Reducing the peak is often worth more than reducing the total.”
When it does not stack up
Sites with a very flat load profile, low consumption, or an already favourable contract may see little benefit. We would rather say so at the review stage than install equipment that does not pay for itself. An honest assessment starts with half-hourly data from the meter, not with a product recommendation.
Important notes
- Business services are at an earlier stage than our housing pilots.
