New Electricity Contract
Choice Housing are pleased to be able to announce our new electricity contract with Budget Energy, which covers our offices and the communal or landlord areas of some of our housing schemes. In advance of this year’s tender exercise in the summer we held market engagement with electricity suppliers in Northern Ireland. We were aware of rising energy prices and so this engagement allowed us to ensure our tender process was suitable to deliver savings and also reduce risk. Our new contract with Budget Energy runs from November 2018 for one year. When compared to average market prices we estimate this new contract will deliver savings in the region of 9%, which equates to almost £80,000 over the next year. These savings are passed on to tenants at schemes where these electricity costs apply through a service charge.
Other landlord or communal energy costs
Choice also carry out procurement exercises in relation to our Natural Gas sites across Northern Ireland, with savings again secured as part of new contracts earlier this year. We estimate that our new prices are around 3.5% cheaper than average market prices, which means over our two year contract that savings could be in the region of £44,000.
Choice are also responsible for heating oil for a number of our housing schemes and in 2017 we renewed our participation in a UK procurement framework to ensure these costs are effectively managed. At the end of 2017/18 we estimated savings of around 5%, or £4,000 in relation to heating oil, when compared to average heating oil prices.
