According to the latest information released by the Environment Agency (as we write this), only 1,500 full participant registrations and 5,000 information disclosures have been completed.  The deadline for this important process is the 30th of September.  With only 30% of expected organisations having complied, the Environment Agency is expecting a late rush of new cases.

More importantly, the penalties for not registering or submitting an Information Disclosure are potentially heavy.  Fines of £5,000 minimum are built into the scheme as a minimum for non-compliance.

All sites with one or more half-hourly electricity meters must be registered within the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.

Make sure your organisation is not flouting the law: contact Utility Masters for clear, unbiased advice on your position.

 

The UK cold snap has affected the number of Triad Warnings from all suppliers this Winter, with accurate forecasts of daily electricity demand proving very difficult for The National Grid to provide.

Unpredictable industrial production, added to a higher domestic demand caused by the increased need for lighting and heating, has resulted in the usually predictable Triad time windows being more difficult to pinpoint.

Utility Masters has a class-leading Triad Warning service and we will continue to strive to be the best provider of this service throughout this Winter, aiming to minimise disruption to our customers' activities.  For more information, please email us at info@utilitymasters.co.uk or call 0161 785 0404.

"Far easier to understand than any DEFRA seminar."

The recent CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme seminar, held at Brampton Heath Golf Centre in Northampton on 9th December 2009, attracted an excellent audience of businesses affected by the Scheme.

As well as the comment quoted above, attendees had more the say about the morning's information:

• "Informative and well presented"
• "... the morals of the contents of the day were very relevant"

Make sure you're prepared for the CRC Scheme.  Attend our next seminar, which is being held on:

Wednesday 3rd February 2010, 9.30 am at Blackley Golf Club, Manchester M9 7HW.

If your think your business will be affected by the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, register now to book your place. If you don't think your business is affected, you may be surprised - don't leave it to chance.

A map to the venue is shown here:

(View Carbon Reduction Seminars from Utility Masters Ltd, Blackley Golf Club, M9 7HW in a larger map)

Click on the map and then the placeholders to be given directions from your own location.

First Utility Masters CRC Seminar Meets With Success

The new CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, as it was renamed in the latest announcements by the Government, will affect every organisation in the UK with at least one half-hourly read electricity meter, and in some cases will result in complex new reporting and payment obligations.

Utility Masters held the first in a series of CRC Seminars at Blackley Golf Club in Manchester on Tuesday 13th October 2009, which was met with excellent feedback from the attendees, including:

- "A complicated subject, handled well - plenty to think about."
- "Excellent as always."

If your business is likely to impacted by CRC, register now to attend next free Utility Masters seminar, on Wednesday 21st October 2009.

Starting with registration at 9.30am and running until lunchtime, the seminar will help you to understand the impact on your organisation, and the choices you will face before the scheme becomes a legal obligation in April next year.

A map to the venue is shown here:

View Carbon Reduction Seminars from Utility Masters Ltd, Blackley Golf Club, M9 7HW in a larger map. Click on the map and then the placeholders to be given directions from your own location.

Industrial Laundries to Save on the Climate Change Levy

The latest sector to be granted to opportunity to save up to 80% on Climate Change Levy costs is the industrial laundry sector.  These savings will be ongoing, for the lifetime of the sector's Climate Change Agreement. 

The Textile Services Association has gained a new Climate Change Agreement which enables businesses involved in the following to be exempted:

• - Laundering and finishing of textile items supplied to end user businesses, commercial or public sector bodies.

Facilities that cater predominantly for the domestic market, or dry cleaning facilities, are not eligible.

Timescales for saving money are incredibly tight - only applications completed and received by the Agreement administrators by the 25th September 2009 are guaranteed to be assessed in time.  However, applications received after this date will still be considered, without guarantees.

Contact Utility Masters now to enquire about this important opportunity to save money.  Or read more about our Climate Change Services first.

- Phill.

Savings Now Finalised for Plastics Businesses

The British Plastics Federation has recently published an update about the long-awaited Climate Change Agreement for the Plastics sector.  If plastics businesses get their applications submitted in time, it may now be possible to obtain an 80% exemption from the Climate Change Levy as early as 1st October 2009.

It's expected that there will be backlog of applications due to the length of time this Agreement has been delayed, so contact us as soon as possible to find out how you may be able to get your application completed in time.  Delays at this early stage might result in your business not being granted exemption until April 2011 at the earliest.

For more information about Climate Change Agreements, follow this link.

The CCA application process

There are often huge benefits to being in a Climate Change Agreement. Aside from the financial incentive, it offers agreement holders the opportunity to brand themselves environmental do-gooders, despite some obvious flaws in the scheme which suggest that in order to get the benefits you don’t actually have to be any more “green”, as such.

I’ve said before that there is a balance to be struck in this respect, the right attitude is important and it’s often the subject of one of the first questions I ask when I go to a new customer to set up an agreement: “What’s more important, your company being seen to be green, or the financial benefit?”

I will often ask this question before I even start to discuss what the company does or start down the path of eligibility. It can sometimes be a fork in the road of the application and subsequent dealings, and defines the priorities of the work. Also, I’ve found quite unexpectedly it can be a bit of an ice-breaker at times, which is always useful.

The point of the application visit is effectively to prove what we already know; that the site is eligible to be in the scheme. If it wasn’t I probably wouldn’t have even heard of it, we have a pretty knowledgeable sales team and they tend to do the legwork on eligibility to some extent, for obvious reasons, our clients aren’t likely to sign a contract unless we can guarantee they’ll get what they pay for!

Another thing that often turns out to be proving the obvious is the 90/10 rule. CCAs are aimed at industry and though there are certainly some deviations from the norm, at most sites the distinction between eligible (process energy use, including ancillary activities such as steam and compressed air) and non-eligible (offices, canteen, engineering workshop) is frequently a no-brainer.

Still it needs to be done. Sector administrators, auditors and DECC themselves all seem to be more reluctant to approve an agreement without the use of their respective fine tooth combs these days, so it is important for me to listen to the questions they ask and make sure I get all the answers on my visit to avoid any delays caused by questions bouncing back and forth over email.

The most helpful thing a client can do in that respect is be prepared to spend some time with me on the visit to make sure I’ve seen and understood every aspect of their operation. If they can devote that time in that one day or a few phone calls afterwards, it can often save them weeks of email debating.

 

The right attitude to Climate Change

Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) have been in place for around eight years now. The concept is simple: agree to the Government’s terms, including some demanding energy efficiency targets and you get a rebate on Climate Change Levy. How you meet those targets depends on how important the green credential really is to your business.

Those who subscribe to the theory that the world is on the brink of disaster brought about by mankind’s tendency to burn things might go to extraordinary lengths to do their bit for the planet. There are others who might view the CCA scheme as, quite frankly a bit of admin work and some Carbon Trading for a massive tax rebate.

In my view the optimum attitude is somewhere in between: a blend of the real and ideal where you can save the world and have your own agenda. There are around five thousand organisations with CCAs, for me every one of them should be able to strike a balance between meeting the demands of their agreement and doing the day job.

Among other things, I am tasked with finding this balance in my customers. My role is to help them meet the obligations of the agreement they’re signed up to without taking up too much time and preventing them from doing what they do best.

Now, as I said the agreements have been around for a while at this point, so most companies who are eligible to be in an agreement by now are. The odd few that aren’t are often only part eligible, meaning it could be tenuous as to whether the rebate they’ll receive will actually be worth it. Many of the customers I get now fall into this bracket, though I also still get work reviewing sites that already have agreements.

In both contexts, I expect the worst. Over the course of these blog entries I will reveal some of the weird and wonderful situations I’ve witnessed on CCA visits and give details of what we did to put things right. Frequently, the responsible person has left and it is a breakdown in communication that has caused the CCA to be forgotten.

Sometimes just a bit of common sense is required, it seems ridiculous but the amount of people I’ve spoken to who don’t give their agreement the time of day because they just weren’t aware of how many hundreds of thousands of pounds it saved them is phenomenal.

>Always though, there is something new to be learnt. Most of the time, even the most forgotten and neglected of sites can fix things and in my experience even the most organised sites can improve.

It’s never too late, but you need to have the right attitude.

The British Plastics Federation (BPF) has been working hard to put in place a new Climate Change Agreement for the plastics processing sector. This Agreement would have allowed many businesses to save 80% of the Climate Change Levy, a tax paid on the energy businesses use.

At the end of February, however, the BPF learned that the European Commission had refused to approve the Agreement. The BPF statement is quoted here:

"We have been advised that Mrs Neelie Kroes, the EU Competition Commissioner, personally considered the case for a plastics processing CCA on 18th February and concluded that there was, as yet, insufficient evidence to warrant an approval. She has, according to UK government , asked for an investigation of the case under Article 88(2) of the Treaty of Rome."

"This means that this decision will appear in the Official Journal of the European Communities and views will be invited not only from the UK plastics industry, but also other national plastics industries in the EU and also competing materials' industries. This could take at least six months (some previous cases have lasted up to eighteen months) and will certainly push the final, decision beyond the deadline for completion of Climate Change agreements in the current scheme (this September)."

" UK government is extremely concerned by this as it has very serious implications for all existing Climate Change Agreements and those yet to be developed. The government tell us that they are urgently considering the implications for CCA's as a whole and plastics processing in particular. They tell us that they are reviewing all the options open to UK government in order to effect an improvement on this situation. We are pressing this matter very hard indeed and are currently preparing letters to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ed Milliband, Secretary of State at DECC, and Ian Pearson who holds Ministerial positions in both the Treasury and BERR, requesting their assistance in resolving this issue."

This disappointing news will be a blow for many UK plastics firms, with global competition affecting the industry as well as the general economic downturn.

If you are affected by this decision, contact Utility Masters to see how your business may be able to reduce energy costs. Better energy buying and energy management can improve your competitive position, and your business may need to prepare for the Carbon Reduction Commitment, the UK’s newest piece of Carbon legislation.

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