Controlling utility cost across several sites

Cost control across several sites starts with a single list: every site, every supply number, the contract each one sits on, its end date, the meter type, and who occupies the site. Most estates do not have this in one place, and until it exists any comparison between sites is guesswork.

The list itself usually pays for the work. It is what surfaces supplies still billed at sites that closed, meters that belong to a neighbouring occupier, and sites that have quietly rolled onto out-of-contract rates because nobody held the end date.

Raw cost per site tells you which site is biggest, not which is worst. To find the outlier, compare on a basis that removes size: consumption per square metre, per bed, per cover or per opening hour, whichever unit reflects how the site is actually used.

Then compare base load, meaning the consumption that continues when the site is closed. Two sites of the same size and trade should have a similar overnight floor. Where one sits well above the other, the difference is a controls or plant question, and it is visible in half-hourly data without a site visit.

Duplicate standing charges. Several supplies at one site, each carrying its own fixed charge, where the site could be served by fewer.

Capacity set for a former use. Agreed capacity inherited from an earlier occupier or an earlier fit-out, still charged monthly long after the demand changed.

Vacant and handed-back sites. Supplies still in your name after a lease ended, often billed at deemed rates.

Fragmented contract dates. Renewals scattered across the year, so the estate is never tendered as one volume and each site is negotiated on its own.

One error, many sites. A rate loaded incorrectly or a levy applied wrongly is rarely limited to the invoice that revealed it. Every confirmed finding is worth testing against the rest of the estate.

Once the record exists, the work is maintenance rather than investigation: invoices read against the contract each period, exceptions listed with a status, end dates held in one calendar, and any change of occupancy reflected on the record the month it happens.

A ranking of sites by consumption per unit of activity, refreshed each quarter, is usually enough to tell you where to look next. The site that moves up the ranking is the one to open.