The challenges businesses faced when trying to go ‘green’

The challenges businesses faced when trying to go ‘green’

We spoke to three businesses before the Covid-19 crisis to discuss the challenges they’ve faced when trying to alter their businesses’ energy use to help create a cleaner future.

Trying to alter a business’s energy use and limit its carbon emissions comes with investment risks and uncertainty. For many, it’s a case of learning as they go, with not all of the answers being clear when they set out on their journey.

“Without assistance from the Growth Hub, we would never have had the confidence to go and invest the money,” said Matt Edgley, at Teledata before the outbreak of coronavirus earlier this year.

“We still don’t know where the market is going, and feel like it’s a gamble, but it’s one we’ve had to take. It puts us in a better position commercially, potentially. The more efficient we can be the more competitive we can be,” he said.

But he still feels pinched by the structure of the bill.

“You only have to look around in Manchester and see that not many data centres are being built these days because it’s so important to get that critical mass to make it pay off.

“People end up cutting corners to get them built and don’t necessarily make them as energy efficient as they could be. There is going to be an undersupply of data centre space, unless it’s going to be made more attractive to operators.

He adds: “We are investing all this money into battery storage and efficiency, for example. But there is one line on the bill that is for renewables obligation.

“We pay £10,000 a month towards the cost of renewable energy in the UK, even though we have got a 100 per cent renewable contract ourselves. I do think there needs to be some recognition of the investments we are making and compensation for the charges being made.”

For Donald Moore, at Rowlinson Knitwear in Stockport, having the ability to generate power on his roof is just one part of a jigsaw that still has some pieces left to find, especially when he wants to export energy back into the grid.

Changes to the feed-in tariff have meant small suppliers are no longer subsidised to the level they once were for generation, after the government argued the cost of technology had been driven down to the point where it wasn’t needed.

Quentin Abel, Managing Director at APC Manchester in Trafford Park would like to do the same thing, working with or exporting additional power from the solar panels he’s installed to neighbours. One complication is the limit on what APC Manchester can export back to the grid in the first place.

“There may be good technical reasons why we can only export part of what we produce, but it would be nice to export the full amount when we are able to. That may not be possible, which is when battery storage becomes useful,” he said.

Clearly, the business environment has changed a lot in a short space of time since we had these conversations and businesses have faced significant challenges due to Covid-19.

However, as we move into the recovery phase after the crisis, there is a strong mindset that a ‘green’ recovery should be at the heart of society’s attempt to build back better.

We want to hear your say on this – what are your main concerns about trying to be more energy efficient, and have you faced any challenges when trying to do so? Also, how do you think we at Electricity North West could support businesses better?

We are calling for those living or working in the north west to have their say on our future investment plans as part of our biggest ever customer engagement programme. Anybody interested in getting involved can visit www.pluggingin.co.uk for more details.