Strategy & Energy Efficiency
Founded on 30 years of experience in the industry, Mainline Energy can provide informed energy management, market intelligence and commercial advice. Our expertise covers strategy, regulation, purchasing, contract management, general cost reduction and optimisation of the energy portfolio through on-site generation, battery storage and optimisation across the supply contract and asset portfolio.
Mainline Energy generally limits itself to specific or a limited number of clients at any one time. Above all, our aim is to remain client-focused and attentive to its business interests at every turn. Our method of working is to offer open, frank and very well -informed advice, responsively and cost-effectively.
In the case of certain electro-intensive users, we may also offer consulting on enhanced energy purchasing management. Making use of the latest innovative OTR market platform which bestows what is effectively ‘sleeved access’ to the whole of the OTC market and reduced-price opportunities on offer in that wholesale trading arena. OTR platforms essentially give the buyer access to the OTC and other physical & paper markets to which they wouldn’t have access otherwise.
For example, a buyer may be constrained in not having all the trading system, counter-party or grid-level master agreements in place thereby excluding this buyer from the cost-reduction opportunities possible in the wider OTC market. The OTR market can offer potentially lower-cost access to the entirety of the OTC market allowing the buyer to trade with all the energy producers in the OTC trading arena and so trade at the best possible bid or offer price on offer at the time. Historically, only very large players (with Grid Trading Master Agreements (GTMAs) in place with other OTC counter-party agreements) have had ‘de facto’ access to the OTC but the OTR now extends this cost-saving opportunity to smaller or new entrant players as well.
The OTR solution that we can offer our client may prove to be a faster, more effective way to buy energy, at direct OTC prices. The OTR route could be a cheaper alternative to setting up an ‘all-new’ trading operation from scratch, especially if electricity trading arrangements themselves change in the future. In essence, the OTR works to cut energy expenditure over time by fractionally reducing the mean purchase price of transactions: reducing the buyer’s weighted average cost of electricity (or WACOE). This strategy could help a company to reduce its energy expenditure year on year with benefits evidenced directly into the company’s annual P&L. The OTR savings on a trade by trade basis may be ‘fractional’ in £/MWh terms (say, £0.01/MWh or so) but over time these savings do stack up. A fairly simple OTR exercise can substantially cut a company’s costs (since the cost savings stack up cumulatively) and reduce administration costs at the same time as the overall process is streamlined through a single trading account.
We can advise our client on OTR as well as alternative I&C and OTC purchasing strategies.
General Cost Reduction Services
Mainline Energy can help clients to claim rebates in respect of overpaid water, gas or electricity supply bills. We offer instant forensic checking of all invoices to authenticate the amounts charged by the supplier using our unique algorithm and auditing tools developed in-house over the past 13 years. In the case of electricity, our algorithm is now finding errors in nearly a third of cases handed in to us. Such errors are generally recurring mistake so it is important to have these corrected immediately. Also we will promptly prepare a report for the client at no extra cost, which will highlight each billing mistake we identify made by your supplier, highlighting and explaining all the commodity cost, non-commodity charge, tax and climate levy rebates which the energy buyer should be able to claim back from past suppliers and network companies.
If instructed, Mainline Energy can help users to reclaim overpayments in supplier bills. In which case our only fee will be a commission based on the total rebate we get repaid to the end user’s account; negotiating with any past, present suppliers and network companies relevant.
Existing UK legislation still allows an energy user to claim up to six years’ worth of overpaid network charges and a further four years’ worth of overpaid VAT and climate change levies, backdated to the first date of the user logging the original claim, unilaterally or using us to do so for them.