Organizations around the world are experiencing unprecedented disruption and market uncertainty in the aftermath of COVID-19. In the current harsh economic climate, controlling business costs is more important than ever.
Reducing energy spend can provide effective relief from cost pressures. According to experts from the Carbon Trust, a 20% cut in energy costs can represent the same bottom line benefit as a 5% increase in sales.
The pandemic has not only touched everyone across the world, but it’s been a learning opportunity. We’ve managed to overcome various challenges that we didn't think were possible – like deploying infrastructure to enable remote working and remain connected. In that vein, as you steer your organization on the path to business recovery, there are opportunities to quickly reduce your energy spend, generate revenue, and reduce your carbon emissions. With an energy management strategy in place, you can unlock opportunities to transform your energy infrastructure from a cost to an opportunity for growth.
But how can you achieve energy cost efficiencies without jeopardizing your carbon reduction goals or incurring extra cost?
What's certain is that the traditional cost reduction methods of negotiating a better energy deal will no longer deliver the savings you require. Implementing energy efficiency improvements is a good place to start. Making changes to your energy infrastructure is a longer-term strategy – incorporating flexible technology solutions that can keep pace with how your business changes over time, help shield you against rising costs and energy supply disruption, and help you meet your sustainability goals.
There's a growing recognition that innovative distributed energy solutions are the answer to driving better operational, cost and environmental performance.
Installing a solar photovoltaic (PV) system will lower your reliance on the grid, reduce your costs and improve your environmental performance by generating a plentiful supply of renewable power on-site. Internet of Things (IoT) energy insights technologies can monitor your energy consumption in real-time to provide granular visibility of energy performance and identify where your costs truly lie.
Interconnected energy-generating assets allow you to use energy more effectively and flexibly. By optimizing the energy generated by these assets, you can achieve further cost savings and add a revenue stream by reducing your consumption during peak periods. You can thus unlock value from your energy, rather than treating it as a fixed cost.
At a time when cash conservation is paramount, your business may lack the capital to invest in energy efficiency measures and integrated distributed energy infrastructure. But this doesn't need to frustrate your sustainable energy ambitions.
Cost saving energy solutions can deliver such strong and predictable returns on investment that projects can be funded off balance sheet using flexible finance options.
Centrica Business Solutions' flexible finance solutions are supporting thousands of businesses globally to overcome barriers to investment. In this way, we can help you to unlock opportunities that reduce energy and operational costs, improve energy resilience and environmental performance, and meet your corporate social responsibility targets.
By moving from a capital cost model to an operating cost model, you can use energy as a service. You can then share in the cost and carbon saving benefits of distributed energy projects, without the risk, upfront investment or ongoing asset responsibility. You simply pay for the power/cooling/heat or other guaranteed outputs, such as carbon savings, over an agreed contract term.
With no capital expense, you can preserve precious cash reserves for core business investments. You will be able to balance both your commercial and environmental performance by taking advantage of advanced energy opportunities.
Our international research into future trends in sustainable business growth shows that sustainable energy leaders are also the most commercially successful. These businesses take a long-term view, with 63% of sustainable businesses having a detailed efficiency and distributed energy solution investment strategy.
More and more businesses are recognizing the opportunities to take distributed energy investment off balance sheet. 41% of the 1,500 businesses we surveyed stated a preference for a longer term financial agreement.
Our broad range of financial solutions turn your energy challenges into business advantage, with no upfront investment. We build these flexible solutions around your specific business and energy goals, appetite to risk and financial objectives.
We support thousands of private and public organizations to accelerate their energy, operational and environmental performance. By combining our global energy industry leadership with a strong balance sheet, we deliver lasting results.
Benefits of flexible finance from Centrica Business Solutions:
Watch our video to see how you can finance your sustainable energy ambitions:
EaaS is our performance-based funding option that enables you to implement multi-measure energy and water efficiency infrastructure upgrades with zero upfront capital expenditure. Once a project is operational, you repay the investment via regular service payments from your realized, guaranteed energy savings.
Our ESPC is a budget-neutral financing approach that allows federal, state and local government organizations to make building improvements that reduce energy and water use, while increasing operational efficiency. No upfront capital expenditure is required and investment in infrastructure upgrades is repaid on a performance basis via guaranteed energy savings. We can provide flexible, ongoing service contracts and warranty support to make sure your system remains fully optimized.
See how the City of Canandaigua is cutting energy costs by 35% and gas consumption by 20% to achieve annual utility and maintenance cost savings of $190,570:
Our USA finances the complete capital costs of bespoke energy saving projects, which often involves multi-technology distributed energy solutions. We can also include all project services (OPEX costs), such as fuel supply and operations and maintenance contracts to ensure stable, long-term asset performance and substantial risk transfer.
Our PPA finances on-site solar PV generation for a period of up to 25 years. This solution requires no upfront investment and no solar PV system ownership responsibilities. You gain access to a renewable, reliable source of energy that provides immediate energy savings and protection from increases in grid pricing. We provide the long-term funding, operation and maintenance of assets.
We offer two solar PPA options:
See how Connecticut's Reed Intermediate School will save $1.5M over 25 years by generating clean, efficient solar energy through a PPA:
Our capital purchase option applies to organizations wishing to use their own capital to benefit directly from distributed energy savings. In this way, you can retain maximum payback and take advantage of government incentives and tax breaks. We offer fixed price turnkey energy solutions together with optional operation and maintenance service packages – to simplify management and provide potential performance guarantees.
Centrica Business Solutions finances and delivers integrated distributed energy projects. We provide full energy lifecycle support across insights; optimization; efficiency; on-site solar generation and storage, and electric vehicle enablement.
We partner with commercial, industrial and public organizations internationally to eliminate complexity and risk from sustainable energy strategies – providing flexible finance where required.
As your long-term partner, we can help you to become more efficient, resilient and sustainable – on your pathway to a low-carbon future.
