Determining What Your Business Electricity Prices Will Be

The cost of business electricity is determined by several factors. You can look up quotes for the various suppliers in your area who provide electricity to businesses, but if you don’t know who those rates are being determined and what they are based on, then you won’t actually know if they are reasonable rates or not. That comparison process is an important part of getting great rates, but you should also be aware of how the rates are being calculated.

Standing Charge

One of the charges you will have to pay for your electricity is called a standing charge or daily charge. This is calculated based on how much money it costs the electricity supplier to get current out to wherever your business is located. So, consider if your business is out in the countywide, miles from any city or power supply. In order to get current to you, the supplier has to maintain an infrastructure of power lines, maintenance crew and more. It costs them more money to get power to you than it would to someone who was located near to them. That standing change will be more for you than it would be for someone who was close by.

The standing charge changes from one company to the next, but when you are looking at business electricity rates, consider where you are located in regards to the power company and factor that into your calculations. It could be that they cannot charge you a cheaper rate simply because it is so expensive for them to send electricity to where you are.

Per Unit Charge

There is another charge you should also be aware of. This is the per unit or daily charge. You will be charged for every unit of energy that you used. This can be expressed as kWh (kilowatt hours), but you need to be careful about how it is calculated. Most of the electricity suppliers out there will charge you on the hour for what you use. Others will charge you every half hour. If you don’t know which one you are being charged at, then you won’t know if the rate is a good one or not. you will always pay more for half hour charging, so if you are currently in a contract where you are charged per half hour, you need to get out of it as quickly as possible. You are losing money on it, and there are much better choices out there.

The per unit charged is not just a flat rate offered to everybody. If you are a small business, you get charged a different flat per unit charge than a mid-sized business. That mid-sized business would be charged a lower rate than a large business would. The charges are separated into tiers, and whichever tier your business falls into determines how much you pay per unit of energy. If your business is upgraded and expands and enters a new tier, then you will have to start paying the cost of per unit energy for the next tier.

Compare the Rates

The various electricity suppliers out there all have different business electricity prices. Some of them are far more reasonable than others. If you want the best rates, then you need to be comparing prices between the various electricity suppliers.

You can do that easily by comparing electricity and gas prices online.

These allow you to enter the search terms that pertain to your business, such as where you are located and what size of business you have. Then you will get results back in moments. The comparison site will show you what several of the electricity suppliers are charging for your company. They will give you estimates, as the actual price will have to be determined by the electricity supplier after you give them more information. You will usually be giving the comparison very basic information, and taking what they know about the supplier’s rates, they will give you an estimate.

Those estimates are quite valuable, though. They give you a good idea of what you can expect to be charged. While the actual number may be a bit higher or lower, it shouldn’t be too much different from the estimate.

It’s a good idea to keep up with those estimates and get quotes every so often, even after you have signed a contract for business electricity. You can always find lower business electricity rates later, if you keep checking back with the comparison site for new quotes.

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The Energy Advice Line is the UK's leading online price comparison and switching service dedicated to small and medium sized businesses in the UK.

Our online quotation engine has been designed to facilitate speedy but accurate commercial electricity and gas prices – all at the click of a button to allow you to search the market for the lowest prices from an extensive panel of suppliers and contract options.

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