Energy costs for small businesses
On average, UK SMEs can spend up to 20% of their total business costs on energy consumption, a large part of operational expenses. Open banking applications can analyse financial data in near real-time to assess a business's spending patterns and energy usage, offering recommendations for less costly utility options based on actual consumption data.
Case study: VoltView's energy marketplace for SMEs
One of the shortlisted entrants for the Department of Business and Trade’s recent Smart Data Discovery Challenge, VoltView is a smart energy marketplace (SEM) which aims to simplify utilities management for small firms.
Businesses, unlike domestic customers, are not protected by the energy price cap and can be impacted by market volatility, potentially facing sudden increases in bills. Many business owners, however, lack the time to source alternative suppliers. VoltView’s proposition aims to simplify this.
By utilising half-hourly smart meter data, retail tariff data, and credit checks, VoltView’s marketplace can offer:
Custom supplier recommendations based on their energy profile – including for the most appropriate ‘class’ of smart meter.
A payback period calculator to support decision-making.
A repository of relevant grants and support.
It will enable users to anticipate future consumption changes before committing to contracts and support the transition to time-of-use tariffs when economically viable. Once firms have signed up, VoltView will continue to monitor their energy use and pricing, and if these change, enable simple switching from a choice of thousands of suppliers.
As well as helping to reduce energy costs, VoltView can also help small businesses in moving towards net zero.
It is currently being piloted at a dozen small business locations to make utility management easier, offering average savings of more than 10%. VoltView will be publicly available to SMEs in the summer of 2024.
Pierre Tabet
VoltView founder
“Our marketplace intelligently aggregates relevant open data to help firms manage their energy better. This is particularly useful for businesses in the hospitality sector, which often have high energy costs because of the amount of equipment they use – fridges, freezers and fryers, for example.
By monitoring usage, VoltView can identify inefficient energy usage in their buildings, or when equipment is left on unnecessarily, to provide tailored recommendations – and enable simple switching to a more cost-effective tariff or appropriate meter.”
The future...
IceBreakerOne
Based on open banking’s data sharing principles, energy data initiative IceBreaker One develops standards-based marketplaces for environmental and financial data. For example, the Open Energy proposition aims to enable the sharing of energy data via a trust framework.
Project Perseus
Project Perseus, run by Bankers for Net Zero and Icebreaker One, aims to transform data sharing and sustainability practices for the UK’s small businesses. It works by taking smart meter energy data to automatically generate low-cost, low-friction sustainability and emissions reporting.
Supported by banks, fintechs, trade associations, accountancy bodies, and small business associations, Perseus offers the potential to identify and track the biggest opportunities for emissions savings among small firms.
