Know your consumption before you spend on plant

A commercial energy audit begins with twelve months of invoices and, where available, half hourly data. That reveals the split between energy, distribution charges, capacity charges and levies, and it is common to find money in the non commodity lines before any equipment is considered.

Reserved capacity is the usual example. Sites frequently pay for capacity set years ago for plant that has since been removed, and correcting it is administrative rather than capital work.

The point of starting here is honesty about sequence. If your bill has a structural problem, installing generation on top of it just makes a bad contract slightly smaller.

Half hourly data shows the working day, the overnight base load, the weekend behaviour and the peaks. Base load is often the most revealing figure, because equipment running through the night is usually running unnecessarily.

The same data determines how much of a future solar array would be self consumed, and whether storage has anything worthwhile to shift. Without it, sizing is educated guesswork.

Peaks matter separately from volume. A short spike can drive charges out of proportion to the energy it consumes, and the fix may be a control change rather than an asset.

In our experience the order is generally: correct the contract and capacity, remove waste from the base load and controls, then generate. Each step reduces the size and cost of the step after it.

Waste is unglamorous and reliable. Compressed air leaks, refrigeration set points, heating and cooling running against each other, lighting on when a building is empty, and equipment left in standby overnight all show up in the data.

Only then does generation get sized, against a load that has already been cleaned up, so you do not buy an array to power something that should have been switched off.

Some organisations have statutory obligations such as the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme or streamlined energy and carbon reporting, which come with their own scope, evidence and deadline requirements.

A commercial audit and a compliance audit overlap but are not the same. If you have a statutory obligation, tell us at the start so the work is scoped against the correct requirements and the evidence is usable.

Where a formal compliance assessment is required, it is carried out by an appropriately qualified assessor rather than by NRG Solar.

You receive a written picture of where the money goes, a ranked list of actions with indicative costs and savings, and a clear statement of which figures are measured and which are estimated. It is energy saving advice grounded in your own data rather than a generic checklist.

Indicative figures use UK commercial averages for installed cost and import rate, and are labelled as indicative throughout. Firm numbers come from a supplier or installer quotation.

The assessment is free. NRG Solar earns from the installer network, not from you, which is why we are comfortable recommending actions that involve buying nothing at all. That is the difference between this and paid business energy saving consultancy sold by the day.