News & Events

Australia’s soaring electricity prices are set to rise a further 10 per cent following the July 1 start of the carbon tax.

Two states have announced power bill increases beyond 10 per cent, adding to the burden businesses have already endured in recent years, in some cases paying nearly double for electricity.

The surge in power prices is challenging businesses to better address the way they acquire, use and manage electricity and other conventional forms of energy, such as oil and gas.

Why? Because energy costs can account for up to 80 per cent of a typical company’s non-labour operating and maintenance budget, with the remaining 20 per cent spent on asset management expenses. If any of that 80 per cent cost base is paying for wasted energy, it weakens a company’s financial strength and profitability.

In the past, energy price volatility wasn’t a first-order issue for many businesses because of historically low fuel and electricity prices.

This is no longer the case. With increasing executive ownership of energy issues – especially among CFOs – and better visibility of energy data, many firms now view energy costs as a potential threat to their financial success.

Added factors such as growing regulation for energy use associated with carbon emissions, the rise of carbon pricing regimes, and increasing stakeholder pressure to manage energy more sustainably are pressuring firms to become smarter and more strategic about energy.

There is a host of actions that businesses can take to effect immediate and ongoing energy saving benefits, and many that boast short-term payback periods.

However, the appropriate targeting of energy-saving programs requires an enterprise-wide view of energy, including the ability to capture, track and report its consumption and costs at a granular level.

Large organisations are struggling with these tasks – especially those that have multiple building assets spread across many locations and geographies.

The problem is simple to define: the required data isn’t held in a single system of record that permits timely analysis and reporting.

This creates a host of risk, delay and governance issues but most significantly it means organisations can’t track or control energy costs that may be eroding their revenue and profitability.

They simply don’t have the visibility to see where energy is being gobbled up in poor performing buildings, plant and equipment.

Their data systems don’t have real-time data capture capability so they can’t respond quickly to changes in their operations or to climatic events to optimise their energy performance.

Nor can they assess the energy efficiency impacts or payback periods of equipment upgrades or large capital expenditure rollouts.

CarbonSystems at Total Facilities Live

CarbonSystems will be showcasing its new energy management solution at Total Facilities Live from 19-20 July at the Sydney Convention Centre.

The TFL Expo and Conference is expected to draw 3500 participants and exhibitors, including facility managers, maintenance engineers, building owners and corporate real estate professionals – anyone responsible for the operations, maintenance, building and renovation of mid to large property portfolios.

TFL also features an Energy Solutions Expo covering energy efficient design, management and technology solutions for commercial buildings.

Join us at TFL (Booth H14) or contact us for more information or a demonstration of our energy management solution.

CarbonSystems' energy management solution helps companies to save money on their energy bills with powerful decision support tools.

Our cloud-based software that streamlines the capture and reporting of quantitative and qualitative source data in energy, emissions, the environment and corporate social responsibility reporting.

Our software is used by 110 clients in over 50,000 locations in sectors such as corporate property management, education, electricity and gas, government, food services, fast moving goods distribution, information technology, mining, logistics, and professional services.

Our clients include blue chip companies and organisations around the world, including the CSIRO, Colliers International, Canon, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Deloitte, Fortescue Metals Group, Fuji Xerox, The GPT Group, LJ Hooker and Microsoft.