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Energy Briefing - October 2011
As part of our commitment to keep Schools on the HCC contract up to date with changes or events relating to energy, please see below for further details.
Energy Update - 20th October 2011 
Historic Energy Billing Issues
The information below aims to give advice and a general overview of the reasons for the issues with the historic energy billing as well as identifying, where possible, the current position we are at with the various suppliers.
The Energy Management Team have now presented two reports to the Schools Forum on these issues since December and will be updating the situation at each one going forward. We also aim to give regular advice to Schools directly so they are able make informed decisions on their accruals held.
Historic Energy Billing and General Issues
Energy Update Re Historic Energy Payments Made in January 2011
As agreed with Schools Forum and Schools Funding there are two main payments that have been made in January that will affect Schools.
- Shell - Revenue Assurance Audit
As previously reported Shell have been audited by an external company, Revenue Assurance, who have reviewed all of their billing history with HCC and have identified several schools that Shell had either over or under billed during the contract period to Nov 2007. Schools that have incurred these charges will have seen costs or credits going through SAP in January and will have the relevant invoices and reasons for the charges sent to them with the schools post in early February. This is separate to the Shell historic billing issues which are due to be cleared in February.
- Southern Electricity
At the end of the Southern Electric Contract in September 2007 no invoices were paid and every supply on the contract is missing at least the final payment from that period and some possibly with more than one payment missing. Southern have been unable to supply the invoices to enable us to pay them in the normal way. They will be able to supply them but due to the large volume they will not be able to do so until March / April 2011.
What they have been able to do is produce a report that shows the amount that the outstanding invoices total but no invoice detail eg dates or rates. This was discussed with members of School Funding and Schools Forum and it was decided that it would be better to charge the known amount and follow this up with the invoices when they arrive. In the traded services for January transactions there will be an entry for this charge showing the supply ref no, the meter supply ref, and narrative stating it is Southern Pre 2007 charges. (SSE is the official name for Southern Electricity and is used on the narrative). If you expected a charge for a meter for this period but have not received one please let the Energy Management Team know as we can then query this with Southern.
As advised above, as soon as details of dates & invoices are received and reviewed by The Energy Management Team they will be sent out to schools to back up the charges.
Display Energy Certificates for Schools Dec 2011
All buildings with an internal area > 1,000m2, and which are accessible to the Public, must display a Display Energy Certificate ["DEC"].
The Certificate must be displayed where readily accessible to the Public.
The Schools with more than one Block > 1,000m2, each separate Block will require a separate DEC irrespective of whether each Block is separately metered or not. There is no requirement for schools which are below the 1,000m2 threshold to display a DEC, but schools may still wish to display a DEC in the interests of environmental awareness and good practice.
HCC has appointed NPS Property Consultants Limited as the supplier to commission DECs from 1 January 2012 onwards.
For schools with only one Block > 1000m2, the charge in 2012 shall be £120.00. If two or more DECs are required the charge shall be £85.00 per DEC.
All Blocks qualifying for a DEC also require an Advisory Report ["AR"]. The AR is valid for 7 years. The charge per AR from 2012 shall be £120.00 per report.
NPS will contact all schools requiring a DEC survey prior to their visit. They will present identification, CRB documentation and a copy authorising letter from HCC Property & Technology confirming their appointment as the Supplier to commission DECs."
A sample DEC can be found below:
Sample DEC
For any information regarding Display Energy Certificates, please contact
Paula Warrender 01992 556133
or email:
paula.warrender@hertscc.gov.uk.
Commissioning, Supply and Delivery of Display Energy Certificates Jan 2012
In December 2011 Hertfordshire Property & Technology announced the appointment of NPS Property consultants Limited as the supplier to commission Display Energy Certificates (“DECs”) from 1st January 2012.
NPS’ 3 year appointment followed a tender competition amongst the HCC Supplier Framework participants for Property Survey & Data Collection activities. The Framework Supplier List was compiled in 2011 following an extensive procurement evaluation. The evaluation included pricing, quality & service improvement criteria.
The communication dated December 2011 detailed NPS’ pricing for 2012. This includes for a site visit. The 2013 & 2014 pricing has been fixed at a lower level than 2012 as only a limited number of site re-visits are envisaged, with the bulk of the work undertaken by NPS from their own offices. A summary of the charges are below:
Display Energy Certificate Charges |
First year DEC 2012 includes site visit
Single certificate renewal
Further certificates for other blocks on same site, per block |
£120
£85 |
Subsequent years 2013, 2014 desk top renewal*
Single certificate renewal
Further certificates for other blocks on same site, per block
*Where the assessor deems that a site visit is required due to changes to the building then first year charges will apply |
£68
£50 |
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New Advisory Report required (ie New build/Extension)
Advisory Report, per block
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£120 |
The previous Data Collection Supplier, “Spatial Intelligence Limited” [trading as “School Energy Matters”], is not an approved participant within the HCC Framework. You may have recently received a speculative approach from Spatial Intelligence offering to provide you with a renewal DEC when the existing Certificate[s] expire.
Schools may, if they wish, commission Spatial Intelligence directly concerning the renewal of their DECs. If a School wishes to commission Spatial Intelligence, the School is requested to notify paula.warrender@hertscc.gov.uk so that the School is excluded from NPS’ programming. In such circumstances, the School will have to provide all relevant energy consumption data directly to Spatial Intelligence. The School will also be required to provide an electronic copy of the final data in a prescribed form to paula.warrender@hertscc.gov.uk for our overall data records & verification that all Schools are compliant with the Regulations. DEC display is a Statutory Requirement.
HCC frequently receive Freedom of Information requests concerning DECs. Any School choosing to appoint Spatial Intelligence should note that it may be necessary for the School to seek additional information from Spatial Intelligence on the County’s behalf dependent upon the FoI enquiry received.
No action is required by Schools who wish to continue with the existing arrangements whereby HCC commission and deliver a DEC[s] via the selected Framework Supplier, NPS Property Consultants Limited.
NPS will be in contact with all Schools during the week commencing 30 January to confirm the forward approach irrespective of when your DEC is due for renewal (most School DECs become due for renewal during May - July).
Academy Schools should note that the current commission with NPS does not cover any School Blocks requiring a DEC.
AMR Metering
As you will be aware, a project to install AMR metering across all HCC sites has been ongoing since January of this year.
One of the things AMR will enable you to do is view your consumption (on a day +1 basis) online via the BG360 website.
We are pleased to be able to advise that the website is now live and a letter was sent out last week (week ending 20th May) to all headteachers with details of your login and password, which will enable you to access the site and the data for your school.
A user guide is also available:
If you are still awaiting AMRs to be fitted, then there will be no data for your school as yet, but you are welcome to investigate the website and familiarise yourself with the options available.
N.B. We understand that many of you are having problems logging in to the website. While your USER NAME is automatically corrected to all caps when you type it in, your PASSWORD is not (you can't see this because it is displayed as asterisks). The password is actually case sensitive so you must type it in exactly as it appears on the letter - capital letters where there are capital letters, lower case where there is lower case etc.
Any queries, please contact Energy Management on 01707 292446.
Energy Briefing - October 2010
This report is split into 2 sections, the first part is information on issues that could come up at any School and has some recommendations should specific circumstances occur.
The second part includes a report on the historic billing issues that was presented at the last Schools Forum. It also includes a summary of the discussion held and actions that are to follow.
Information on Energy Billing and Related Issues
Energy Billing Report - October 2010
Please find included with this submission onto the Grid, a table of all schools along with their relevant suppliers with an indication of whether the supplier’s billing is complete or not, as requested at Schools Forum and also on the Energy Briefing published on the Grid for Learning in early October (see above.)
This document covers supplies on the HCC corporate gas and electricity contracts paid centrally by Energy Management only. It is possible that your school has further meters which are not on contract and not paid through this team, it is very important to note this document does NOT cover these meters. The school would need to budget for any ‘independent’ meters as well as those contracted through HCC.
Each school is listed by the school number on the left hand side of the document. Reading across, the details are broken down in to the different utilities and contract periods. The data only relates to the historic billing, up to 30th September 09 for electricity and 31st October 2009 for gas.
This information is given in good faith and with the expectation that each school will compare this to their own records, the billing data from Traded Services and the paper invoices they have received. It incorporates all our known records however you should be aware that the suppliers are legally allowed to re-bill incorrectly invoiced consumption for up to 6 years. As such it is possible that an error could be found by the suppliers, and the billing re-issued. If this did occur we would of course challenge and check the corrections but ultimately if these are found to be accurate the invoices would have to be paid.
As agreed with Schools Forum this report does not show the time span of unpaid invoices nor the amount outstanding, to produce a report of that size and complexity would take a huge amount of time and considerably delay the actual work of clearing these older invoices. We will be putting further updates onto the grid over the coming months that will advise on progress and sites cleared.
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