Finding out who supplies your business energy and water

Unlike domestic energy, there is no one register that names the supplier for every business meter. Each utility has its own route, and for electricity there is no free public lookup at all. The supplier is always named on the bill, so where invoices exist, start there. This sheet is for the sites where they do not: a new tenancy, a site that changed hands, or a portfolio where the paperwork never caught up.

There is no public electricity supplier register. The route is through the distribution network operator, the company that owns the cables in your area:

• Find your network operator with the Energy Networks Association postcode tool.
• Contact that operator, and it can confirm the registered supplier and your MPAN, the supply number for the meter.

The network operator is fixed by location and cannot be switched. The supplier is a separate company that bills you, and that is the one you can change.

Gas has a national service. The Find My Supplier website, run by Xoserve, names the registered gas supplier for a postcode, and the Meter Number Helpline does the same by phone. Both also give you the MPRN, the gas supply number, which you need when agreeing a new contract.

Business water splits in two. The wholesaler, which owns the mains and treats the water, is fixed by region. The retailer, which bills you, can be chosen. MOSL, the market operator, runs a postcode and meter lookup on its Open Water site that names your most likely retailer.

A site where nobody knows the supplier is often a site on a deemed or out-of-contract rate, inherited from the previous occupier and among the most expensive ways to buy energy. Once the supplier is confirmed, the next questions are the contract end date and the rate being paid, and both are worth establishing before renewal rather than after.

For a portfolio, we do this as an exercise in its own right: every meter identified, every supplier confirmed, every contract position recorded in one place. That record is the starting point for procurement, bill validation and everything else.