The Garden Trellis Company

"Thankfully we managed to get out of the contract in time because the proposed rise in the unit rate would have been a vast increase for us."

• Location: Essex
• Sector: Garden Joinery
• Saving: £3k

The Garden Trellis Company has managed to make big savings on its annual energy bills. Located in Clacton on the Essex coast UK, the company was formed in 1992 and has established itself as a leader in design and manufacturer of bespoke garden joinery.

With help in the form of an interest free loan from the Carbon Trust, it bought a woodburner that burns the waste woodchips that they used to pay to have taken away. It is so effective that they now don't need to burn gas to heat the buildings. However, with all the workshop machinery required to run the business, electricity consumption is consistently high at around 50,000 kWh's a year.

Last month, its supplier wrote to say it was increasing the unit rate for its business electricity from 8.17p/kWh to 14.73p/kWh, which would increase the annual cost from around £4,000 to around £7,500. A phone call to the supplier resulted in a different, more complex, offer but little improvement on the overall price. This promoted the company to write a termination letter which it managed to do within the notice window permitted and thus avoid being automatically roped-in to the new price.

At the same time it began looking for a more competitive rate and called Make It Cheaper who searched the entire market on its behalf, offering a price of 9.06p/kWh for a one year 'new customer' contract with an alternative supplier.

This will cost The Garden Trellis Company a much more palatable £4,500 over the next 12 months, a saving of £3,000 against the renewal price of their company utility contract .