npower shows businesses the future with new energy tool

npower has launched a new tool enabling businesses to help forecast future energy consumption to save money, reduce carbon and better manage participation in the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). ‘encompass professional’ is a monitoring tool that analyses energy use in detail and combines historic data on company production levels and energy usage with 20 year weather patterns to calculate future energy use. This information is then used to improve energy management and cash flow to devise strategies in reducing consumption, costs and carbon. In trials, ‘encompass professional’ has proved to be accurate and has identified opportunities for significant cost and carbon reduction. The ability to calculate future energy use and carbon emissions is expected to be a huge benefit to companies preparing for the CRC, which goes live in 2010. After year one of the new cap and trade scheme in April 2011, businesses which fall within the remit of the CRC will be required to purchase allowances based on their future annual carbon emissions. Using ‘encompass professional’, businesses will be able to better manage their purchase of carbon allowances thus reducing the financial risk of needing to buy additional allowances on the open market. ‘encompass professional’ is the latest addition to npower’s ‘m3’ solution, an energy management service which includes energy monitoring and targeting together with guidance on implementing carbon and energy reduction strategies. The launch of ‘encompass professional’ sees npower become the first utility company to offer businesses a complete end-to-end service including electricity and gas provision and smart metering, together with energy management and future forecasting. “Cost and legislative demands mean energy deserves board-level attention to manage it effectively. Those companies that put strategies to reduce consumption in place stand to gain from the business benefits of lower costs and emissions. With the launch of ‘encompass professional’ we’re giving businesses a further valuable tool to achieve this by helping them manage current, but also future energy demands”, said Dave Lewis, Head of Business Energy Services for npower.