Fracking: What the Frack is going on?

With the Government announcing that Local Councils who back fracking will get to keep more of the proceeds from operations in the UK, we thought it might be worth taking a look at the state of play, so to speak.

Fracking is a controversial and hotly-discussed topic in most of the industry and for every 10 people, there seem to be 15 opinions on the subject.

From an impartial, emotionless standpoint, there are many, many reasons fracking seems like a “must do” rather than a “maybe”, and it seems that the whole subject is another example of eye-popping, jaw-dropping images and conjecture clouding and misinforming the general public about the ‘risks’ involved in fracking… After all, which makes the better story, “Fracking could save consumers a little bit on their bills“, or “LOOK AT THIS TAP SPRAYING OUT FIRE!!!“?

The long and short of it is that we need a solution to the current quagmire in which we find ourselves. We are ridiculously over reliant on importing energy, and the import figure is rising.  Renewables are a great way to push us towards self-sufficiency, but there is major investment needed (which, frankly, should have begun YEARS ago, as it did with many countries, most notably, perhaps, Germany).

So where is the energy we use coming from? The Gridwatch website is brilliant. If a little confusing at first…

Without looking at the ‘dirty’ generation elements and focussing solely on ‘renewables’:

• Wind Energy currently provides about 7.8% of our daily grid demand for Electricity (including unmetered farms, therefore an estimate).
• Hydro Power accounts for 1.4% of this daily need (worryingly, as the Gridwatch site states, this could be higher were it not for stations intentionally reducing their output to maximise subsidy rates)
• Biomass contributes 2.14%, however much of this comes from importing timber which, whilst qualifying it as ‘sustainable’, hardly seems far to take into account with a goal of ‘Self Sufficiency’ in mind, does it?
• Solar is, as expected in our tropical British climate, infinitesimal in the scheme of things, and massively weighted to summer months. Estimates are in the region of 0.25GW’s, therefore less than 0.5%, on generous estimates

That, from ‘renewables’, gives you somewhere in the region of 15/16% of our daily demand for electricity. In real terms, unless you are happy with blackouts for (in the region of) 20 hours a day, every day, then we need to find our energy from some other source.

The protesters may have some of their facts correct but there are upsides and downsides to all energy sources all of which seem to cause the same people to object:

• Wind – ugly
• Solar – ugly
• Biomass – save the trees
• Nuclear – aargh Chernobyl
• Coal – let miners keep their jobs, but shut down all the polluting power stations please.
• Hydro – reservoir destroys beauty spot and kills fish, allegedly
• Gas/Oil – yet another ugly power station blighting the landscape
• Shale – caused an earthquake in Blackpool and you can set fire to water
• Tidal Power – destroys habitats of estuary birds.

How many of these protestors are also complaining about rising energy bills from the Big 6?  The price of Gas in the USA has halved since they started extracting Shale Gas in significant volumes.

Microgeneration is likely to provide the long term solution (i.e. micro turbines, solar panels and ground source heat pumps on every new home/office development), but at present, this is a long, long way off and requires the concentration of everyone in the UK all at once… This, historically, has been somewhat tricky to achieve in any area, let alone something as complex, taxing and confusing as Global Energy Management… Apparently, even Eastenders is struggling to do that these days!!

There is an estimated 26 trillion cubic feet of extractable Shale Gas in the UK, based on the latest estimates.  We already have many operations licensed for on-shore drilling in the UK as it stands and this practice began in 1919. Surely, at the very least, this possible solution requires some further investigation? Yes? With things settling down in the US and them becoming a net exporter of energy for the first time in decades in 2011, Shale Gas looks like a very viable, and if properly regulated, safe way of reducing our dependence on Import until we get something better off the ground. Plus, environmentally speaking, the net effect of extracting Shale Gas in the UK is not likely to be as ‘Dirty’ as our current solution, which is to buy fossil fuels from the cheapest source we can.

If the choice was “do it with renewables” or “do it with fracking”, the choice is obvious… renewables it is… That, however, is not the choice… it’s just another part of the energy mix and it’s better to use our own resources in the UK than to pay ever increasing prices for importing energy and when our energy runs out be held to ransom by other countries. So more of everything please.

Image courtesy of Energy Live News

 

Lee Freeman is an Overhead Management Specialist at Auditel in Leeds and is always looking for a better way.

WHY do we do WHAT we do – Our Passion…

“Our passion is to simplify the working lives of the people we work with.  We do this by giving them back the time they need to do the job they started out to do in the first place.  We deal with all those things they know they need to do, but never get the time – the bottom half of their to-do list – and by the amalgamation of small gains, give them back their time and just happen to increase their profits.”

We’ve been thinking internally a lot lately about how to articulate, why we do what we do i.e. what is our passion.  In the process we came across the Simon Sinek Ted Talk [see below] which led us to pull together the above paragraph.  Simon Sinek talks about why certain people and certain companies inspire action from others, may we suggest you take the 18 minutes and 5 seconds to watch it through, once you’ve finished reading this article of course.

 

 

Any of you who know us will know that the mantra at the top of this blog sounds somewhat familiar, if a little more succinctly expressed.  We talk about these things passionately and do so because we mean it.  Those of you who work with us already will know it by the results we deliver, but might not understand the theory behind why we do the things we do.  We are driven by a need to see things done correctly, done transparently and done accurately.  First time, every time.  We are fastidious in our method and our work for all of our Clients, so much so that we estimate 80% of our work is paid for by the 20% of our work for which we can charge.

The savings we create are, in essence, a by-product of our process working correctly… Though, admittedly, a happy one!

If you like the idea of getting back to why you are supposed to be sitting down at your desk today, and you like the idea of working with a team of people who will skilfully, willfully and tirelessly work on your behalf to make you more efficient and better prepared, then…

 

Simplify your life. Speak to us.

2014 Energy Market, ‘Flat and Flatter’ and the value of 3 Year Deals

With all the recent brouhaha regarding Energy over the back half of 2013, we thought it would be worth giving our thoughts as we go into 2014 on the energy market in general and some of our reasoning.

Regardless of what the perception is, the market is flat. It’s flat now, and it’s been flat for a while. Today’s pricing is almost exactly the same as this time last year. The difference between the commercial market (which energy companies buy at AND sell to businesses at) and the domestic market is what causes the confusion here. We sit at home watching our bills go up and the news telling us about price increase after price increase, but, not to labour a point, the wholesale market is flat. In fact 5 of the Big 6 have announced price decreases for domestic tariffs in the past month but you’ve not seen that on the front pages have you! The press are as much to blame for perception of increases.

The domestic market lags behind the commercial market for many reasons, about some of which we’ve written in the past.

As it stands, long term deals seem to be more productive at the moment, which, again, regardless of perception, is unusual (but not unheard of).  Energy companies have to build in a lot of uncertainty into long term contracts. Usually, the gut feel is you have tended to pay in the region of a 10% premium for this. Historically, this has not been far away from what we have experienced over the years.  Currently, however, we are often finding that the cheapest annualised contract price is actually the 3 year deal, the graph below is a genuine client’s tender results:

So, what could be causing these oddities and the pricing anomaly?

1. The Pressure?  There’s no doubt (and little coincidence) that the furore started by Mr Miliband in August (and now carried through by almost everyone within 50 miles of the Commons) had the respective PR machines at the Big 6 pushing the overdrive button. However, this long term pricing strategy seems far more considered and reasoned than just a good old fashioned knee jerk. Have Ed’s claims to control the energy markets borne fruit, purely by stimulating the market forces he derided in the first place?
2. Shale Gas? Very soon, and for the first time in a LONG time, the USA will be a net exporter (in around 2 years) of energy and British Gas have already begun to purchase future supplies from them in anticipation. Is the Middle East’s stranglehold on pricing coming to a close?
3. ‘Green’ tariffs going into general taxation?  Much has been made of this in the recent press, with the energy companies themselves coming out in support of the exchequer funding the UK’s clean energy drive. Is this just ‘story swapping’ as the ‘Price Freeze’ tub-thumping runs its course?

There are also many other factors at play here, but the general message is that all of the aforementioned point to energy suppliers themselves feeling the market will stay flat or actually trend down over the next 3 or 4 years, barring any major disasters and/or conflicts.  This may, or equally may not, be borne out, but that is the gamble energy companies take with this pricing strategy.

All this speculation could lead you into thinking you might be better off leaving this to the experts… I’d certainly agree with you there!

 

Lee Freeman is an Overhead Management Specialist at Auditel Leeds and is open to the idea of 3 year energy deals at the moment.

118 118 mobile calls costs you a fortune. Free alternatives; the basics.

The adverts are innovative. They are simple and have now become part of the UK’s psyche and consciousness. Like Doctor Who or Stephen Fry. Unlike those venerable institutions, however, 118 118, if you are actually using it, is costing you a fortune.

This blog is prompted (in part) as it has annoyed me for years now and (in larger part) by O2’s recent announcement that they are raising their prices for calls to 118 118 (specifically) from the already ridiculous £3.00 per minute to the eye-watering £5.00 per minute from 12^th Nov 2013.

I think that bears repeating. FIVE POUNDS PER MINUTE.

If, at the end of the call to 118 118, you allow them to put you through to your destination number, you will be charged a further £5.00 per minute for your conversation. So a 1 minute call to 118 118 to get them to put you through to a number, followed by a 5 minute conversation with the person you called will cost you (if you are an O2 user) £30.00.

Once more for clarity. THIRTY POUNDS FOR A FIVE MINUTE CALL.

If you have a Smartphone (60.4% of mobile users do), you have no excuse. Whatsoever.  Here are 3 incredibly easy ways to turn that £30.00 charge into a £0.00 charge:

1)      There is a search engine you may have heard of at www.google.co.uk which can help you find just about anything you need in FAR less time than it takes to call 118 118. Almost all listings now have a directly clickable link to ‘call’ the business you just googled. Cost = ZERO

2)      If you are a ‘brand fan’ and you just can’t get enough of those crazy moustachioed chaps, then go to www.118118.com (and bookmark it while you are at it). Simply type the name into the search box and hey presto! A clickable link to the number you want every time.  Cost = ZERO

3)      Use the computer you are usually sat at for either of the above methods and manually dial the number. It’s 11 digits long. I’m sure you can manage. Cost = ZERO

The advantages for personal users are obvious and don’t need reiteration.

Business-wise, if you are on an O2 mobile, as part of a fleet at your company, consider this. Let’s say there are 20 mobile users in your business and they all currently make one call per month to 118 118 like the one described above. If you all stop it, your company will save £7,200 per annum.

Just so we all heard that. SEVEN THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED POUNDS A YEAR.

Or maybe you would prefer a free bar at your Christmas Party?

Stop. Now.

Lee Freeman is an Overhead Management Specialist at Auditel Leeds and is very annoyed when he sees customer’s mobile bills, which include the numbers 1, 1 and 8 in a row.

Do you know how much your 0845 number is costing you?

The hidden cost of 0845 numbers – Are you making your customers look elsewhere?

Having just completed a wide ranging analysis on a couple of big landline telecoms projects for a few of our Clients recently, there’s been something of a trend appearing in relation to the dialling habits of both customers and staff which, given the savings we have identified for them, seems worth highlighting.

0845 numbers were a big hit in the 90’s and early 2000’s. They enabled businesses to give themselves a non-geographic presence and to get hold of some great inbound call statistics on who was calling them, from where and in response to what (i.e. advertising campaign tracking). It also meant that customers could call them from anywhere in the UK and pay only for a ‘local rate call’*. This was a boon for customers and businesses and it worked well… For a time.

Things have moved a lot since the mid 2000’s, however, and the virtual omnipresence of mobile phones is very important here.  There is good anecdotal evidence that people are now far less likely to call an 0845 number (or even an 0800 number) from a mobile phone as these sorts of calls are not usually included in their call bundle, meaning higher costs to them. This obviously leads to customers (both potential and existing) putting off calling businesses from their mobile phones… And we all know what happens to something once we tell ourselves “I’ll do that later…”… Later never comes…

In addition to this worrying situation, businesses that use 0845’s will tend to find their own staff dialling the 0845 number themselves. It stands to reason, as they will repeat the number to customers many, many times a day, so when they need to call a colleague, they dial the number they know. This takes them ‘out of the network’ and therefore creates a chargeable call, whereas the underlying ‘01/02’ number would typically have come out of your prepaid minutes bundle, so creating no additional cost at all.

All of this, combined with the fact that inbound calling statistics are now available for ‘01/02’ number and the ability of businesses to use virtual, non-geographical ‘01/02’ numbers has, in this writers opinion, made 0845’s obsolete.

If you are still using 0845’s, perhaps you might want to give us a call… The number is 0113 385 4693.

Lee Freeman is an Overhead Management Specialist at Auditel Leeds and thinks there is a better way to use Non-Geographic Numbers.

* – The Advertising Standards Authority actually forbids calling the prices for ‘084’ and ‘087’ numbers as equivalent to “local rate”, “lo-call” or “national rate” as these terms ceased to have any meaning in the UK in 2004.

How do you get free mobile phone calls?

There have been a few announcements recently that have just served to strengthen the general trend towards “free”(see later for an explanation of ‘free’) mobile communication we’ve all been seeing over the last few years. The likes of ‘whatsapp’ and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) have taken a huge dent out of the text messaging numbers (and therefore revenues) mobile providers receive. In addition, the release of BBM 7.0 saw them introduce ‘Voice Call’ over the BBM platform and BlackBerry have now announced, (via CEO  Thorsten Heins so one can assume it’s not another hoax) that they are going to finally open up to other handsets and will be available on iOS and Android from Summer 2013. Whilst the BBM offering is likely to be more reliable, offer a wider scope of services, options and possibilities than the others, by far the most significant announcement in this sphere is the recent announcement of ‘FaceTime Audio’, effectively, a VoIP system.

The near ubiquitous iPhone (therefore iOS) will be, regardless of all of the above points, the thing that decides whether ‘we’ (the people) are ready to move to a new way of making calls… There is a lot up in the air at the moment (iOS7 won’t even launch until Sept 2013) and there is no guarantee that it will work on 3G/4G/EDGE (FaceTime video does, so it’s a reasonable assumption).  There are also always going to be coverage issues (outside of WiFi of course), but this could effectively mean ‘free’ calls between people who ‘know’ each other (have some form of digital connection, at least) are about to become a reality from anywhere to anywhere else… And, as a few people are noticing, it’s really not being discussed.  Apple (and the industry in general) seem to finally be making moves into the end game of severing their reliance/dependence on networks and this is going to be big news for businesses as well as the general public. International Call costs, Gone.  Non-Inter Fleet Call costs, Gone.  The list of possibilities for savings and efficiencies is long.

However the word “free” is bandied about a lot and free isn’t really free.  As always, it really just means a different way of paying.  So in this case a traditional mobile voice call over the airwaves becomes a call using data.  Now how you pay for that data is another matter, there are essentially 5 ways under current revenue models:

1)       A data bolt-on e.g. £5 a month for 1Gb

2)       PAYG e.g. £1 per MB

3)       Home/Business Wi-Fi – so you (or your employer) pays your broadband provider a monthly fee

4)       Public Wi-Fi – usually payment is in kind i.e. purchase of a coffee

5)       Wi-Fi Hotspots e.g. BT provides ‘free’ hotspots to those purchasing home broadband.

So, on corporate fleets you can’t expect all users to understand the cost of every call and to make the choice between Wi-Fi, Data Carried Calls or Voice Calls. The sensible and logical choice for businesses is to analyse the historic usage and then procure the right bundles for your corporate fleet that fits the actual ‘real world’ usage profile of the users.

 

 

Lee Freeman is an Overhead Management Specialist at Auditel Leeds and likes well thought out procurement strategies.

How to buy Green Energy for Business

Green… But at what cost?

A recent survey of very high value energy purchasers (up to £17m per annum) revealed that as few as 19% of them had “buying Green Energy on their agenda”.

On the surface, this is worrying. But, as is often the case, it isn’t the full story.  A further 32% suggested they would consider going green, but only for little or no additional cost.

The negative 19% figure is a better headline than what is likely the real truth. The survey itself actually shows the real figure they found was 51% who had “buying Green Energy on their agenda”… So “Most”, then… The caveat that it needed to be cost effective doesn’t take it off the table, does it?  “Of course it does”, I hear you say. Not if you work with Auditel!

More on that later, but a little deeper thinking around those figures can give you some further insight… Depending on how full or empty your glass is, so to speak.  With whom does the job of putting green energy on businesses agendas lie?  There are many answers to this, but in our opinion, the most important one would be the suppliers.  Is the survey suggesting that the remaining 49% of high value buyers, given a choice between green and non-green (with cost removed from the equation entirely) would still choose traditionally sourced supplies?  We don’t think so… and our maths suggests that green energy CAN be on the agenda for 100% of high value buyers… Importantly, at the right price.

We work with a number of suppliers who provide a mix of green energy at no additional tariff, some of whom will provide 100% Green with the same “No additional tariff” promise.

Does “Zero” sound like the right price to you?

Lee Freeman is an Overhead Management Specialist at Auditel Leeds and this blog post is brought to you by the number ‘Free’ and the colour ‘Green’.

More info: ‘Green’ or Sustainable Energy is defined as energy that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Hydroelectricity, Wind Power, Solar Power, Tidal power, Geothermal energy and Artificial Photosynthesis are all examples of ‘Green’ or Sustainable Energy.