As of January 2015, npower has rebranded its business supply and services division, formerly npower Industrial & Commercial, to npower Business Solutions, marking 25 years of working with some of Britain's largest businesses and a new approach to the customer experience.
Under its new name, npower Business Solutions will maintain its goal of helping customers use less energy, whether that's through improved efficiency or even bypassing supply by going off-grid.
However this isn't the only important milestone npower is marking. npower has recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its Optimisation Desk, a service that is the first of its kind to provide unfiltered access to the energy markets which today serves hundreds of business customers, typically spending between £1.8m and £120m on energy commodity costs per year.
In today's climate, energy managers are just as likely to be scrutinising wholesale power prices as they are analysing energy efficiency and consumption figures, however a decade ago, only a very small handful of pioneering businesses wanted to buy their energy direct from the wholesale market. The Optimisation Desk grown with this transition.
Over the past decade, the energy market has become increasingly volatile and as a result, prices have fluctuated enormously – however the Optimisation Desk has been there throughout to help customers manage their exposure and control costs. Transparency is always a given, with the price visible in the wholesale market guaranteed and often bettered, thanks to the team's expertise and range of trading options at their disposal.
Whether you are buying energy, or selling if you export power from on-site generation, a key requirement is access to accurate market intelligence. The Optimisation Desk offers twice-daily market reports as well as 24/7 access via our secure online portal Risk Navigator.
We ourselves at npower have saved more than 10% on like-for-like costs each year since moving from a fixed price to a flexible purchasing contract, demonstrating that the wholesale energy market is now open to everyone – seasoned professionals as well as time-poor or inexperienced newcomers. So it is with interest that I look forward to seeing what new developments the next decade brings.
