9 June 2010

Alva Launches In Sight for Energy & Utilities

A daily industry report analysing the news and social media for the latest emerging reputational issues, risks and opportunities.

Alva launched In Sight Energy & Utilities, a sector-based report drawn from traditional and social media. Delivered daily and weekly on a subscription basis, the service provides organisations in the Energy & Utilities industry with an analysis of emerging reputational risk issues.

Designed for Board-level executives, corporate communications directors and frontline business departments, the latest Alva In Sight analysis shows that Renewable Energy dominated traditional and social media discussion over the past month with 23% of all Energy and Utilities talk on the issue. With the oil industry facing a substantial reputation spillover effect from the BP Deepwater disaster and the new UK coalition government outwardly supportive of renewables, coverage of all forms of renewable power is likely to increase substantially in the coming weeks. Infrastructure issues (12%) are closely linked with renewable issues and as such are likely to yield a large share of coverage largely thanks to the divisive nature of wind turbine installations and government policy on the future of the UK’s ailing nuclear reactors. Corporate news (16%) focused on the soaring profits for gas companies as a result of the cold winter as well as ongoing concerns over billing transparency, with consumer dissent increasing via social media channels. This will help boost consumer readiness for smart meters, but the issue itself is likely to be pushed off the media agenda, particularly as its seasonal boost has passed.

Commenting on the new service, Alberto Lopez, CEO and founder of Alva, said: “In the current regulatory and economic environment, the UK Energy & Utilities sector is increasingly under close scrutiny from a multitude of stakeholders. Now is the perfect time to launch our In Sight service, a service to ensure business decision-makers and frontline staff can stay on top of emerging reputational issues and spot potential risks and opportunities as they happen.”

Following Alva’s launch of In Sight Automotive in May 2010, Energy & Utilities is the second In Sight service from the corporate reputation and risk analysis firm. Services are planned for 32 industry sectors in total.

In addition, Alva will provide a range of complementary services designed to allow organisations to build reputational risk assessment and analysis into their day-to day business processes to ensure reputation is managed in the same way as any other business asset. These services will include a near real-time dashboard to analyse an organisation’s reputation, bespoke reputational research and consultancy, as well as sector-specific forums for professional development and networking.

For the latest updates on emerging Energy and Utilities issues follow Alva on Twitter @AlvaUtilities

2 June 2010

Battersea Power Station owners enjoy 30% savings on energy costs thanks to Power Efficiency

Battersea Power Station owners enjoy 30% savings on energy costs thanks to Power Efficiency

... New contracts secured with no security deposit through Power Efficiency’s energy procurement expertise …

London – 2 June 2010 – Power Efficiency, the UK’s leading energy procurement and carbon strategy consultancy, today announced that it has achieved energy procurement savings of over 30% for Real Estate Opportunities plc (REO), the international real estate company and owners of Battersea Power Station. REO is proposing the regeneration and redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, which will be the catalyst for the creation of a new quarter of Central London in Nine Elms.

Rob Tincknell, Managing Director of Treasury Holdings UK (development managers for REO) said; “We had been on excessive energy supply contract rates when we brought in the Power Efficiency team. The expertise of the Power Efficiency team in securing such low energy costs has already resulted in cost reductions beyond our expectations, and will result in significant cost savings for us going forward.”

Using its collective experience of over 100 man-years in the energy markets and its constant monitoring of wholesale energy pricing, Power Efficiency was able to secure contracts with suppliers for REO that resulted in cost savings of over 30% on electricity. In addition, Power Efficiency took on high level credit negotiations on behalf of REO and as a result was able to secure the new low cost contracts without the need for any kind of security deposit – a practice that has become the norm for energy suppliers and that is crippling commercial energy users of all sizes.

Bobby Collinson, managing director of Power Efficiency, commented; “Achieving these kind of savings is only possible through close and continuous market monitoring, and we’re very proud of what we have achieved for Real Estate Opportunities. Security deposits are having a dramatic impact on the cash flow of all large energy users, and their broad introduction during the downturn exacerbated this – all organisations should negotiate hard with their energy suppliers to reduce the impact on their business.“

About Real Estate Opportunities plc
Real Estate Opportunities (REO), is a listed real estate investment and development group, active in the UK and Ireland. REO's investment and development portfolio includes land, development and investment properties in all of the major sectors of the property market including office, retail, industrial and residential. REO owns prime office and retail assets, such as Central Park, Dublin and the Lafayette Building, 22/25 Westmoreland Street, Dublin, with high quality blue chip tenants including Vodafone, Merrill Lynch, KPMG and Marks & Spencer.

REO also owns Battersea Power Station, which is being developed by Treasury Holdings. Rafael Viñoly’s masterplan for the 40 acre Battersea Power Station site includes a CCHP energy centre, generating 30MW of electricity, which, together with other energy efficiency measures, will enable the Power Station to become zero carbon and the rest of the development to be low carbon, saving around 65% of CO2 emissions across the whole site.

About Power Efficiency
Founded in 1999 with the prime objective of bringing a fully-rounded, strategic approach to the business of energy management, Power Efficiency is one of the UK’s leading consultancies in helping businesses define and achieve successful energy procurement and carbon strategies. With a management team that has over 100 years experience in energy markets in both the UK and overseas, covering core areas such as energy procurement, energy reduction, auditing and the introduction of new technology, Power Efficiency constitutes a known and respected voice with every key supplier in the utilities markets, and also with legislative bodies, including the UK and EU governments.