INTRODUCTION

There are a number of key reasons to improve energy management in your organisation:

• to save costs

• to comply with legislation

• to manage risk.

The rising cost of energy in the UK since 2000 has highlighted the need for improved management of this resource. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) updates its predictions of fossil fuel prices annually[1] and its modelling of gas prices based on four scenarios[2] is shown in Figure 1. These scenarios have been chosen by DECC to model the range of probable market conditions with a view to predicting price increases on an annual basis until 2030.

The worst of these scenarios predicts a 100% increase in prices over the 10 years from 2008. Scenario 3, based on high demand and producers' market power, currently appears to be the most realistic. This predicts a two-thirds price increase over the same period.