April 1st – a key date in an energy consultant’s diary

31 Mar

No, its not about having a laugh (although we do that occasionally), it’s when a raft of annual energy related deadlines have passed which always make the first quarter of the year very busy:

UK ETS annual return
CHPQA annual return
April start energy contract renewals

UK Emissions Trading Scheme

Only applicable to larger energy users (>20MW combustion plant). There are lots of ‘are you in / out’ twists and turns though and you’d be surprised how regularly we stumble across sites that are ‘in’ but could quite legitimately be ‘out’ saving a lot of money and hassle in the process.

If you’re in:

There’s a bunch of policies and procedures to keep up to date
Your annual CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels to calculate
Get the above checked out by an external verifier
Submitted to the Environment Agency
…by 31st March each year – no excuses!

Combined Heat & Power Quality Assurance

If you’ve got a CHP you don’t have to do this but you’d be daft not to. CHPQA is what makes you eligible, in most cases, to pay zero CCL on gas used by your CHP and zero CCL on the electricity is generates; it can add up to a lot of money.

To get these savings you need to submit annual performance data to CHPQA by 31st March each year. You can submit it later than this and CHPQA usually ‘come up with the goods’ but they won’t guarantee it.

April energy contract renewals

Practically, this is no different to any other contract renewal. It’s just that when the energy markets first opened up, April 1st was a key start date and many have stayed this way so there’s always a rush to get these sorted in the first quarter of the year.

Time for a rest?

Maybe not…

The first week of any month is one of monthly meter readings and analysis rapidly followed by incoming energy bills to check
Where CCL relief is applicable HMRC PP10 & 11 forms need updating especially if/when you have changed supplier
HMRC form CCL100 – many CHP operators have these to do, submitted quarterly. The deadline for Q1 is 30th April
Annual reconciliation of CCL / CPS paid