Most multi site businesses are quietly overpaying every single day on the capacity they agreed with their network operator. We find it in the half hourly data, right size every site, and put the money back on your bottom line.
Book a capacity reviewEvery half hourly metered site has an agreed supply capacity, sometimes called authorised or available supply capacity, set in kVA with the local distribution network operator. Through your DUoS charges you pay a fixed availability charge on that figure every day, whether the site ever draws that much power or not.
Capacity is set once, often years ago, and then forgotten. Shops close, plant is replaced with more efficient kit, sites are refurbished, and demand falls, but the agreed capacity stays where it was. Across an estate of tens or hundreds of sites that gap becomes a large and completely avoidable line on the bill.
Agreed capacity set well above real maximum demand means you pay an availability charge every day for headroom you never use. Reduce the agreed capacity with the network operator and the saving is immediate and permanent.
Sites that exceed their agreed capacity are hit with excess capacity charges on top, and risk the connection. Right sizing upwards where it is genuinely needed removes the penalty and protects the site.
Every estate is different, so the only honest number is the one your own data produces. The shape of the saving is consistent though, and it is worth seeing before you commit a minute to it.
Illustrative figures, not a quote. Availability rates vary by network region, and small percentages across a large estate quickly become five and six figure annual numbers. We work the real version from your own data before you spend anything.
The same DUoS rules cut the other way too. A change known as DCP161 charges a penalty rate whenever a site draws more than its authorised capacity, so a meter set too low bleeds money in the opposite direction. Either way you are being billed against a number that no longer matches how the site runs. Correcting it stops the charge from the day the network operator applies the change, and we keep watching so it does not quietly drift back.
We pull the half hourly consumption data for every site in the estate and your current agreed capacity and DUoS charges.
We compare true maximum demand against agreed capacity site by site, and model the saving from right sizing each one.
We prepare and submit the capacity change requests to the relevant network operators and manage them through to acceptance.
We track the change onto your bills so the saving is verified, and we revisit the estate each year as demand moves.
Once we are reading your half hourly and metering data, three more charges tend to fall out of the same analysis for almost no extra work.
A poor power factor draws extra reactive power that the network bills you for as excess kVArh. We see it in the same data and quantify what correcting it saves.
Wrong CT ratios and out of date standing data quietly inflate every bill. A data error found is often a bigger and faster win than the capacity itself, and it can be recovered.
The same model applies to your gas bill. An overstated Annual Quantity inflates transportation charges, so correcting it recovers money on a second commodity from the same review.
The bigger the estate, the bigger the prize. Retailers, hospitality groups, care and leisure operators, landlords and any business running a portfolio of half hourly metered sites are the ones leaving the most on the table. With market wide half hourly settlement bringing far more sites onto granular data, the number of sites worth reviewing is only growing.
This is not a call centre chasing a percentage. It is a senior led, evidence based review from people who have run national energy programmes, and it works just as well as a standalone win as it does a first step into a wider look at your energy and metering data.
As market wide half hourly settlement rolls out, granular usage data is becoming available for a whole tier of sites that never had it. That data is exactly what this review runs on, and we have delivered on the settlement programme itself.
Sites adding chargers assume they need a costly capacity upgrade and a reinforcement charge. Managed charging often avoids it, and having run a national electric vehicle charging rollout we know exactly where that line sits.
Capacity optimisation is simple to sell and easy to get wrong. It is worth having it done by people who understand the settlement and metering data underneath the bill, not just the bill itself.
Available supply capacity, also called authorised or agreed supply capacity, is the maximum power in kVA that your site is contracted to draw from the distribution network. You pay a daily availability charge on that figure through your DUoS charges, so setting it correctly matters every day of the year.
They are different names for the same thing. Distribution network operators and suppliers use the terms interchangeably for the capacity in kVA agreed for your connection. What matters is whether that figure matches how the site actually uses power.
It depends entirely on how far your agreed capacity sits above real demand across the estate. Because the availability charge is paid every day, even a modest reduction on each site adds up quickly across a portfolio, and the saving is permanent rather than a one off.
If a site draws more than its agreed capacity, the network operator applies excess capacity charges on top of the normal availability charge, and repeated breaches can put the connection at risk. Our review flags any site running close to or over its limit so it can be corrected before it costs you.
We can structure the first review on a share of the savings we find, so there is no risk to you in getting the estate looked at. Regular clients usually move onto a fixed annual review once the estate is right sized.
Once we have the half hourly data and your current capacity figures, the analysis is quick. The longer part is the network operators processing the capacity changes, which we manage for you and track onto the bills.
No. The same analysis applies to your gas bill through an annual quantity review, and while we are in the data we also check reactive power charges and metering errors. The capacity work is usually the biggest single line, but it is rarely the only one.
DCP161 is the DUoS rule that lets network operators charge a penalty availability rate when a half hourly site draws more than its authorised supply capacity. If your demand has crept above the agreed figure you are almost certainly paying it, and the fix is to raise the capacity, which costs far less than the penalty.
Send us your site list and we will tell you honestly whether there is a saving worth chasing. No obligation, and the first review can be on a share of what we find.
Book a capacity review