Discover whether you could be saving on what you pay for your funeral home gas and electricity. See the best deals from UK suppliers with Business Energy Comparison.
For funeral directors, energy prices are an ongoing concern.
The UK’s energy crisis has affected businesses in multiple industries throughout the country. This is because energy is more expensive now than it ever has been in the UK. The funeral industry is one of the sectors that is feeling the effects of this crisis.
Funeral homes are an essential service, as they help us say goodbye to our beloved friends and family that have passed on. Thankfully, if you are a funeral director, and can’t keep the doors of your funeral home open due to energy costs, you have some options available to you.
It is almost always possible to find an energy supplier that will provide you with energy for cheaper. At Business Energy Comparison, we can provide you with free energy quotes from the top energy suppliers in the UK in minutes. Best of all, if we can’t find a quote that beats your renewable energy costs, we’ll give you £1,000.
So keep reading if you want to find out how you can save on your funeral home’s energy costs!
The funeral sector uses a lot of energy. This is because funeral directors and their employees need to keep the cold room powered at all times or operate the cremation furnace if somebody wants their loved one cremated. Thankfully, the UK government has been playing its part in protecting businesses from rising energy prices.
All businesses in the UK, both large and small, have been benefitting from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme since 1 October 2022. It acted as an energy price cap, as it capped the price of electricity at £211 per MWh, and it capped the price of gas at £75 per MWh.
Unfortunately, this scheme is due to come to an end on 31 March 2023. After this date, the energy price cap will be raised to £345 per MWh for electricity and £91 per MWh for gas. This means that funeral directors will be paying quite a lot more for energy in the months to come.
While this new energy price cap is less than the expected wholesale price, it is still a notable increase that could affect funeral prices. Many UK consumers are already opting for lower-cost funeral options like direct cremation to save money.
This is damaging the funerals sector, as people just aren’t spending as much as they used to on funerals. The death rate in the UK has also seen a decrease, which is good in general, but not good for the funeral industry.
If funeral directors have to pay these rates for energy, then funeral prices could increase and become unattainable. Thankfully, there are ways for funeral directors to find better energy deals.
If you are a funeral director, and you feel that your funeral home is being overcharged for energy, you should compare your prices with other funeral homes. There are a number of energy providers in the UK, and some of them offer much better deals than others.
It is always best to compare your energy costs and usage with other businesses in your sector. This will provide you with a good understanding of whether you are using more energy than normal, or if you are paying too much for each unit of energy.
Further on, we will provide you with information that will help you find a cheaper energy provider, or help you to reduce your usage.
If you find that your energy provider is overcharging you for electricity and gas, then you should consider finding a new supplier that will offer you a better deal. Unfortunately, if you decide to do this on your own, you will be searching for suppliers for quite some time.
There are many energy suppliers in the UK, and all of them offer different rates and deals for different businesses. To get quotes from these suppliers, you will need to contact them all and provide them with data about your energy usage and business.
This can take an extensive amount of time, and you still may not find the supplier with the best deals. This is where our team of dedicated energy brokers and consultants can help you.
At Business Energy Comparison, we can provide you with free quotes on energy deals from the top suppliers in the UK. We should quite easily be able to find you an energy deal that will lower your energy costs.
We can also help you with the switching process once you have found a new supplier that better suits your needs.
While getting better rates on energy will certainly lower your energy costs, there are some other ways for you to spend less on energy. Many businesses are moving to renewable energy, as a way to save money. While personal renewable energy solutions can be expensive to purchase and install, they can save you money over time.
Solar power is the best renewable energy source for small businesses and residences, as solar panel systems take up far less space than wind turbines. They are also a much more common choice, and, as a result, are cheaper to purchase and install.
Unfortunately, funeral directors will need very large and powerful solar power systems to get their funeral homes off the national grid entirely. This is because the cold rooms at funeral homes need to be running at all times, and need to be kept extremely cold, which requires a lot of electricity.
Similarly, a lot of gas or electricity is needed to keep the cremation furnace operating properly. This means a funeral director will need to shell out a large amount of money to get a solar power system powerful enough to keep this equipment running.
However, it is also possible to power other things at your funeral home with solar energy and then rely on the grid for more energy-intensive equipment.
A regular solar PV system should be able to power all of the lights and some appliances at your funeral home without any trouble. This will not cost all that much and will allow you to reduce your energy usage.
Alternatively, you could also install a solar thermal system at your funeral home. Solar thermal systems are only able to heat water and provide central heating, so they are cheaper than solar PV systems.
If a lot of your energy usage comes from heating, then solar thermal systems are great options. They can provide your business with effective heating at no extra cost after purchase and installation.
One of the best ways to save money on your energy costs is by reducing your usage. There are many ways for you to reduce the amount of energy your business uses regardless of the industry it is in.
However, the tips below are related to how to reduce a funeral home’s energy usage.
As a funeral director, you will likely be aware that the cold room at your funeral home uses more energy than any other equipment you have. Older funeral homes will often have older types of cold rooms, and the equipment used to keep them cold usually isn’t very energy efficient.
Installing a new compressor, condenser, evaporator, and fans can be incredibly expensive. This is because this equipment needs to be powerful enough to prevent bodies from decomposing.
While the costs to upgrade your cold room will likely be very high, it is something to consider. The amount of money you will save by using more energy-efficient equipment will add up over time, and it will eventually negate the cost.
Funeral homes often contain many lights. Morticians need high-powered lights to see what they are doing when they are preparing bodies for cremation or burial. The funeral service area also needs decent lighting, so that families can see people present eulogies properly.
If you work at an older funeral home, there is a possibility that traditional incandescent lights are still being used. These are nowhere near as energy efficient as some of the new options and should be changed as soon as possible.
Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs are 70 to 80% more energy-efficient than incandescent light bulbs. LED lights are even more efficient than CFL bulbs and can last for up to 100,000 hours.
Installing energy-efficient lights will reduce the amount of energy your funeral home uses by a surprising amount. Changing out your lights is also a relatively cheap process, so you don’t have to spend too much in order to save in this case.
Smart meters can give your energy provider much more accurate data regarding how much energy your business uses. You can even set your smart meter to send updates about your energy usage every 30 minutes.
This means that your provider will only bill you for the energy that you use, instead of determining how much you use on average. 30-minute updates can also tell you what times of the day your funeral home is using the most energy.
This can help you determine when you use the most energy, and what appliance or equipment is causing you to use so much.
If you are a funeral director, it is likely that your employees use more energy than you do. This is why teaching them to be more careful with the way they use energy is important.
For funeral homes to be more energy efficient, funeral directors need to teach their employees to:
Double-glazed windows and good insulation can help reduce your heating costs in the winter. Both double-glazed windows and insulation seal heat inside a room, making your central heating far more effective.
This means you won’t need to turn your central heating on as often as you normally would, and you also won’t have to turn the thermostat up too high.
If you really aren’t sure where your funeral home can improve on energy usage, then it might be time to call an energy auditor. An energy auditor will come to your funeral home and assess what you can do to improve your business’s energy efficiency.
They’ll tell you if you have any outdated appliances that are consuming too much energy, and if you have any problems with your electrical system too.
If you are a funeral director and your funeral home is in dire straits as a result of the energy crisis, then you don’t need to close your doors. At Business Energy Comparison, we can find you a supplier that will give you a better energy deal, so you can continue to help people see their loved ones off.
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme was first introduced in October 2022. It is due to last until 31 March 2023.
The UK relies heavily on gas, which became a lot more expensive due to the Russia-Ukraine situation. The UK relies on both Russia and its neighbouring European countries to provide gas, and the importation fees adds to the overall cost.
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