Wednesday 5 August 2015

Is P322 a pathway to opportunity?

You may have not noticed it but a big bit of Ofgem regulation was approved in June. P322 is an amendment to the infamous metering change called P272.

Neither are new Star Wars characters but they might well have out of this world influence on your business. To understand what it all means ELN caught up with Sam Bailey, Resources Manager at BIU to find out more.

Sam explains: “To understand what P322 is all about you need to know about P272. Lots of companies will probably have heard of P272, it is an Ofgem regulation which was first considered in 2011 and finally approved with an initial implementation date April of 2016. If you are a business that has advanced meters in profile classes 05-08 these will be migrated to the half hourly market by your supplier under this code. That means your bills will become more complicated and contain new charges such as DUOS.

“You will also need to appoint a meter operator and a data collector and so there will be additional costs. It will cost all businesses something but it seems there will be some winners and losers under the system.”

Moving all these businesses over to new metering is certainly a large project and suppliers felt the initial timescale was too tight and so asked Ofgem to delay the start to April 2017.  Although this was initially rejected, P322 was approved which provides a phased introduction with a final implementation date of April 17. That is what P322 is.

Sam adds: “P322 which started on Aug 3 is an amendment to the changes to be phased in. This phased entry starts on November 5th this year. From that day, any business with an advanced meter in Profile Class 05 – 08 will have 45 days to migrate that supply to HH metering either at acquisition or upon contract renewal. “

So is P322 just delaying the inevitable?

“Well people must realise there will be a cost in this migration. But you can also see opportunity in this. Whilst appointing a MOP and DC will have a cost this market is competitive and the ability to make savings is out there. You don’t just have to accept what your supplier gives you.   Clever, commercial sourcing of contracts can deliver significant savings.”

Here Sam says consultants can help.

“You need a consultant who can help you manage this complex migration process, one that has access to all the suppliers and one that can ensure you get the most competitive rates. We can certainly help with that but most importantly we want work with customers to inform them of the changes ahead. After all pass through charges are expected to make up 60% of your bill in the next five years.”

Finally Sam says you need to be on top of your energy usage with all these billing changes: “The actual KWh cost may go up too depending on consumption patterns so there is lots to do around monitoring and targeting and of course you need a consultant that can help you develop a robust demand side response system to make the most of your money.”

BIU is one of the UK’s leading energy consultancies, providing a full range of energy management and support services to help businesses save time and money and improve energy efficiency.

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This is a sponsored article.