Energy is a fact of life. We need it to power our machinery, run our computers and keep cool in summer as we keep warm in Winter. While Australia is notorious for having some of the highest costs of electricity in the world, this doesn’t mean you are helpless when it comes to optimising your energy bills and ensuring you are paying the lowest cost possible.
Choice Energy is a holistic energy firm, which means that we look at both your energy usage and your energy expenditure as two sides of the same coin. When we reduce your energy usage, we are bringing costs down simply because we’ve reduced what is needed for your business to successfully function. Then, by optimising your energy bills, we ensure that the grid energy you are using isn’t putting you more out of pocket than you need to be paying. For savvy business owners, this usually looks like combining high quality business solar with expert energy brokering services.
Let’s look into these two parts.
Step One: Reducing your usage
“Grid energy” is the term we use when describing gas or electricity that is procured to you via your usual connection to the Australian energy grid. This grid connects us to a wide range of energy generators, from brown and black coal power stations, through to wind farms and hydro plants. The cost of this energy is dictated by a wide range of factors, not least of all the pricing offered to you by your provider, who is usually the company you see the logo of at the top of your bill.
As we saw throughout 2020 - early 2021, when the pandemic shifted the wholesale cost of energy to a five year low, the patterns of energy usage throughout both the state and country create an ebb and flow of costs dependent on demand and peak times. At the tail end of 2021, however, costs rise as we see businesses back on track with predictable demand and more people returning to offices. Put plainly: The costs of energy is constantly changing, with peaks and troughs that can be dramatic or mild depending on their cause. What hasn’t changed, however, is the consistent rise in expense, especially over the last ten years.
For many business owners who both rent and own their building or site, commercial solar can be a cash flow friendly solution to a long-term problem. When applicable and shown to be beneficial to your needs, Choice Energy designs and installs a system that can dramatically lower your grid energy usage by turning your own rooftop into a private generator of your own. For many of our customers, this has resulted in savings of up to tens of thousands of dollars per month.
The best part? If you are financing your system, you know exactly what you are paying each month, on an amount not tied to the volatility of the grid energy market, allowing you better forecasting and predictability. As solar is one of the cleanest sources of energy, you’ll also be reducing your carbon footprint, improving your sustainability profile.
For businesses that do not have solar as a feasible option, we are also able to provide savvy metering and monitoring options for your grid energy usage that ensure your usage is correctly aligned with your bills, as well as specific tools such as Power Factor Correction to reduce your demand charge. A lack of solar feasibility does not mean you are at the mercy of high energy bills, especially when we combine them with options to help you pay less.
Step 2: Pay Less
Both regular and large market energy bills can quickly have your eyes glazing over. Between tariff charges, connection fees, shoulder and peak rates, you’ll often find it far easier to just pay it and be done with it. But this could be costing you thousands of dollars in savings, so we’re here to do the hard work for you instead.
A Choice Energy brokering specialist is your new team member when it comes to optimising your energy bills, with a majority of services at no cost to you. Your broker utilises their intimate knowledge of the market to put your business up before a panel of energy providers who will come to the table with their best offers. And if your specialist doesn’t think what they are seeing is truly their best, they’re not afraid of giving them a friendly nudge, either.
Brokering goes beyond the passive act of comparing providers by proactively seeking that better deal while also ensuring your energy is optimised in every other way. Plus, by having a broker on your side who is actively seeking the best option for you, you’re not going to miss out on time sensitive opportunities. While you have the option to agree or dismiss any offer arranged by your broker, we do bring you opportunities that can see you saving significantly in the future.
The perfect example of this was the market lows during 2020 that saw the price of wholesale energy drop dramatically, as many industries slowed down or ground to a halt. We were able to assist a wide range of clients across many sectors by locking in these prices with forward contracting, increasing the odds that they would continue to pay an optimised amount in the years to come. And with so much change and unsurity, including the early closures of power stations and uncontrolled petrol price spikes, a little surety sure goes a long way.
Ready to opt-out of over-expensive energy bills? Let’s start with a simple phone call on 1300 304 448, or you can reach out and upload your energy bill here to fast track the process here.
