Pink Connect Blog

Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category

On 11th of May 2011, the governor of the Bank of England, warned:  “Gas prices may rise by 15% and electricity prices by 10% by winter 2011″

That’s on top of the 15% increases we have already seen this year.

In line with this, Scottish Power have just announced domestic price rises of 19% for gas and 10% for electricity effective from the 1st August.

This will result in a average increase of £170 for a household, pushing a bill from £1,150 to £1,320.

Wholesale Energy prices are around 25% higher than this time last year.  Pink Connect predicted these increases and we have helped lots of customers to make substantial long term savings.

Renewals

If you have received your Renewal Letter from your existing supplier you need to act now as increases in price can now happen on a daily basis. Contact us with the details from your last electricity or gas bill. We will advise you of the best deal for your business and how you can make long term savings.

Even if your contract is not due for renewal, if you provide us with your renewal date we will also insure you do not get “Rolled Over” at uncompetitive prices.

Business Energy

We can provide you with independent advice to assist you in making substantial savings on your gas and electricity costs, as well as protect your business from the forecast long term price increases.

Provide prices that are often considerably lower than those offered by your existing supplier for the renewal of your supply contract. We help thousands of businesses cut their utility costs every year!

The other big suppliers are likely to follow suit, with widely reported comments by British Gas and SSE that current consumer prices do reflect market conditions and will need to rise ‘later this year’.

Insure that your business never “Rolls Over” into a new contract at expensive rates without having a choice.  Interested? Please get in touch click here, or give us a call.

We are here to help…

The Inspire Team with some of its business sponsors (Pink Connect, Inspired Change, Repro Arts) at the Norwich B2B Exhibition - All Photos courtesy of Antonella Muscat Photography

The Inspire Discovery Centre in Norwich has  been through some tough times of late with three break-ins only months apart and running costs which have been spiralling out of control.

The centre, which is based in St Michael’s Church, Oak Street, was spared the axe in 2008 and despite increasing visitor numbers year on year now finds itself struggling to survive once more.

Bosses at the centre have recently organised two events to try and generate awareness for the centre. The first (pictured above) was a stand at the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce B2B exhibition which was an outstanding success. The second was labelled a “Save Our Science” (SOS) meeting at the Forum in Norwich  to give businesses and other interested parties the chance to suggest some new ideas to keep the centre running.

Shell Fearn, centre manager, said: “We called for this meeting as although we’ve been working very hard for two years to maintain the

presence of Inspire and we’re proud 
of what we’ve achieved we’re still heavily reliant 
on the financial support of one individual. We only have one funder who very generously puts his hand in his pocket once a year to give us a top up of funding, but we can’t rely on that. This is not fair either to that individual, our chairman trustee, or to the centre.”

“We’re looking to the businesses and community of Norwich and the wider area to offer us support and ideas to help us build a stable network to aid Inspire.”

Danny Snelling, managing director of Norwich telecoms  firm Pink Connect has been very keen to help out in what ever way possible. Mr Snelling, who has two young boys himself that absolutely love the centre, has already donated a new phone system which has dramatically improved their call handling and saved them over £500 a year on their phone and broadband bills. Pink Connect also has a commercial power brokering team that are now looking to save them over £6000 on their gas and electricity aswell.

A spokesperson for the Centre said the following today “There have been a lot of kind people offering to help out the centre in these rough times and Danny Snelling from Pink Connect is one of them. He has been really supportive of the centre and has helped with our phone system as well as looking at our current bills in order to save Inspire money. As well as this help, he has been ever present to offer words of advice and offer assistance whenever he could.’

If you can help Inspire or have any ideas about how to keep it running call 01603 612612 or email michelle@inspirediscoverycentre.com

Or if you know any local charities like Inspire who could benefit by saving some serious money please give Danny a call on Norwich 01603 510710 who would be happy to take a look.

power costs keep going up. This no idle threat. Here are some real and up-to-the-moment examples of huge increases

Businesses are tied into contracts for Electricity and Gas supply for up to three years. At the end of your contract your supplier has the right to “roll you over” into another two year contract at price of their choosing! Do nothing and your bills will soar.

Unfortunately, we have some customers who have been caught out this way:

• a hospitality customer has just been rolled over to more than double the best rates we quoted
• we saw an electricity bill from a customer who had been rolled.  It was obvious what had happened when we saw the bill.  April 10p per unit, May 10p per unit, June 15p per unit.
• just last week, 7 days elapsed between an orginal quote and agreeing the contract and in that week the 3 year pricing went up by 10% – about £1100pa for this customer. Happily we were able to find them a better contract which will start February 2011.

It seems that about 700,000 businesses are rolled over every year. Don’t let it happen to you.  Let us know if you require help

Pink Connect has bolstered its power offering with a range of technologies which report, manage and minimise resource consumption.

Now, as well as searching out the best value utility supplier for your business, we can also retrofit technologies which result in combined savings of around 25% to 30% of the energy consumed annually!*

Here are a few examples of what can be achieved:

*Based on annual energy spend £15k or more

Pink Connect Ltd is a family business with a firm commitment to long term customer relationships. Directors Gisela and James Pink established the Cotswold based telecommunications business more than ten years ago but still have almost all their customers from the early days.

James recently commented “Our customers know and trust us to supply reliable business communications and power. They usually call us whenever they have a need for further services or equipment. These requests have resulted in the broad range of business services we now offer. Pretty much anything a business needs, from phone lines and systems, Business Mobile, IT, Networking, Servers, Broadband, EPOS and Commercial Power are now covered in our product range. Customers really appreciate our straightforward, honest approach and love our customer service”.

Pink Connect can be contacted on 0845 450 9393.

Market Overview

There was no clear direction in the market yesterday with high LNG imports largely being balanced out by gas pipe maintenance. The curve did creep up during the day only to give back all of those gains at the end of the day and close slightly lower on the day. A strong day for carbon lent some support to power, causing the spark spreads to widen slightly.

Oil $78.82 per barrel  1 year ahead forecast $93         

Indicative market prices are as follows:

Within-day prices unchanged @ 44.75p/th

Day Ahead prices up 0.30p/th @ 43.25p/th

Sep-10 prices up 0.25p/th @ 41.25p/th

Oct-10 prices unchanged @ 43.90p/th

Winter 10 prices up 0.20p/th @ 50.00p/th

Summer 11 prices up 0.20p/th @ 47.05p/th

Indicative market prices are as follows:

Within-day prices up 0.05p/th @ 43.55p/th

Day Ahead prices up 1.03p/th @ 43.50p/th

Sep-10 prices up 0.35p/th @ 40.15p/th

Oct-10 prices down 0.40p/th @ 42.90p/th

Winter 10 prices up 0.40p/th @ 49.75p/th

Summer 11 prices up 0.50p/th @ 47.00p/th

Oil  $80.68 per barrel  1 year ahead forecast $93

R.P.Lovatt Insurance have again chosen their long term Communication suppliers Pink Connect in a deal that includes all lines, calls, mobiles, phone systems, ADSL and IT infrastructure. With this deal, Marc Lovatt has fixed the cost of his partnership’s Communication and IT budget for the next five years. Marc said “Pink Connect have been our chosen suppliers for over eight years now. As we have grown they have expanded our systems ahead of demand ensuring we always have the tools for the job. I am delighted to have secured their comprehensive services at a fixed cost with this innovative agreement. I recommend Pink Connect to any company wanting the best solution for their business communications”.

Market Overview

Prices fell in early trading yesterday, indicating that the gas surge of Monday had been overdone and needed correcting. After the early morning sell off prices stabilised for much of the day with both the gas and power systems looking comfortable. Coal gave some support to the power,  giving spark spreads a bit of a lift after the crash seen on Monday evening.

Oil  $81.79 per barrel 1 year ahead forecast $94

Indicative market prices are as follows:                               

Within-day prices up 0.65p/th @ 44.25p/th

Day Ahead prices down 0.20p/th @ 43.85p/th

Sep-10 prices up 0.25p/th @ 42.00p/th

Oct-10 prices up 0.20p/th @ 45.50p/th

Winter 10 prices up 0.25p/th @ 51.65p/th

Summer 11 prices down 0.15p/th @ 48.05p/th

Indicative market prices are as follows:

Within-day prices up 0.10p/th @ 43.10p/th                                   

Day Ahead prices down 0.88p/th @ 43.10p/th

Sep-10 prices down 1.20p/th @ 41.85p/th

Oct-10 prices down 1.09p/th @ 45.36p/th

Winter 10 prices down 0.95p/th @ 51.55p/th

Summer 11 prices down 1.20p/th @ 48.00p/th

Oil    $80.78  per barrel  1 year ahead forecast $94