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Your energy strategy

How to adapt your energy strategy to meet changing weather patterns, regulatory changes, and changes to working environments.

Nick talks you through:

  • Triads - how to make the most of them and save money on your energy bills
  • Energy Efficiency habits for winter and lower occupancy periods
  • Site validations
  • Targeted Charging Review (TCR)
  • and more...

Triads - what can you do?

Here are our top tips:

If you have a TRIAD avoidance system in place, make sure you’re ready and able to respond.  If the full turn down isn’t possible, the warning service can prompt you to turn down during the indicated period or switch some activities to cheaper times in the day.

Continue to ask yourself and colleagues how you can try to reduce your electricity consumption and you could really benefit from the savings.
 

  • Do you have empty office and work spaces? Is the energy consumption absolutely minimised? Do you need to use it? 
  • Focus on consumption between 4pm – 7pm, November – February. Can you move activity to a cheaper/lower risk time?
  • Respond to TRIAD alerts while the traditional TRIAD warning system is in place this winter

Market Insight Triads service

Our Market Insight service has been designed to help larger organisations make the right decisions. You’ll have access to quality data and expert analysis to help you control and manage Triads.

Optimising Triads

Triad's are an annual opportunity for you to take control of your Transmission Network Use of System (TNUoS) charges. Reduce your consumption during a Triad and you'll make savings; increase your consumption during a Triad and it could impact your budget.

There are only likely to be 2 more years (this winter and winter 2022-23) where you can make a significant difference to your TNUoS charges by modifying your behaviour during a Triad. Due to the Targeted Charging Review, after February 2023 the opportunity to benefit from Triad avoidance will be greatly reduced as the percentage of influenceable costs will be much lower. You can find out more about that in our Targeted Charging Review blog.

But for now - what are Triads, what impact do they have on your bills, and how can EDF support you to make savings?

Making efficiencies - some ideas to think about

This is a list of processes and equipment which could be useful examples to consider as you try to reduce your winter peak demand and convert reductions into cost savings. 

There’s never a ‘one size fits all’ solution  but there are some approaches which keep things simple and can make a difference to your electricity spend, particularly with behaviours in lighting use, using battery power on devices and, increasingly, electric vehicle charging 

Whether your premises are less occupied than usual for this time of year or not,  it is a good opportunity to get into good energy habits and work them into your new normal.

ProcessExample
Heating, Ventilation & Cooling (HVAC)
  • Turning down heating
  • Turning off extraction fans or other ventilation
  • Turning off air conditioning units
  • Turn off ‘climate control’
Refrigeration
  • Turn off (difficult with spoilable foods)
  • Invest in newer, more efficient units with timers etc

Wet Appliances e.g. dishwashers, washing machines

  • Do not use during peak times (or use timers to pause where possible)

Compressed air e.g. fans, pumps etc

  • Do not use during peak times (or use timers to pause where possible)

Lighting

  • Use dimming switches (studies say that dimming up to 30% for short periods is not noticed)
  • Turn off lights (or use sensors) in areas that do not need to be lit all the time

Water pumping e.g. Agriculture or Water Sector

  • Do not use during peak times (or use timers to pause where possible)

Remote device charging

  • Revert to battery (from mains connection) for devices like laptops, phone chargers etc
  • Electric Vehicles – avoid charging

Targeted Charging Review (TCR) - getting to grips

You'll have heard a lot of talk about the Targeted Charging Review (TCR) as more and more about what it is, how it will apply to organisations, and the impact it will have becomes apparent. It will make a big change to the way certain charges are applied, so it's important to understand. It actually forms part of a larger network charging reform, so there's a few things to take on board.


We've broken it down into bitesize chunks to help you get to grips with it:

  • What are network charges?
  • Why is the network charging reform important (this is made up of 2 charging reviews)?
    1. The Targeted Charging Review: what it's trying to achieve, how and when it's going to happen.
    2. The Access and Forward Looking Charge Review
  • Changes to how BSUoS will be charged.