Right now, the UK is undergoing its most critical energy crisis in 10 years. Since the start of 2021, the cost of gas for suppliers has increased by 250%, with the last 50% rise occurring just since August. That’s raised new questions about the the UK’s energy security as a nation, and it’s prompted countless business owners to re-evaluate their own individual energy security too. If you’re one of them, that’s where commercial solar panels can help, by giving you a reliable source of energy to fall back on in case of outages or market fluctuations. And speaking of market fluctuations, let’s take a closer look at the key factors influencing the latest one.

What’s prompted the energy market prices?

We’ll spare you from an overly-intricate economic analysis, and keep it to the essentials: the energy markets have now reached record highs, largely due to the global surge in demand for gas following a particularly cold winter over 2020 – 2021. That’s not been helped by the rebound in post-lockdown energy demand across Asia, which has intensified that demand.

The reason this is such a big problem for the UK is because half of our electricity comes from gas-fired power plants. There’s also been a notably higher demand for gas power recently because of a multiple consecutive nuclear outages, as well as a fire that knocked out a major power cable bringing in electricity from across the Channel. A few other possible factors have been highlighted by observers, including the US refineries that were shut down by Category 4 Hurricane Ida, and reduced supplies from Russia.

How this affects your energy bill

In a nutshell, all that has coalesced into what’s likely to be some of the most expensive energy bills for UK residents in the past 10 years, which is set to have a catastrophic impact on countless businesses (not to mention families and individual energy customers).

According to Ofgem, default energy tariffs are likely to climb by 12.5% on average, to keep up with the fast-rising energy prices between February to July. That’s probably going to lead to yet another price hike this coming April, putting further strain on customers. Fixed rate energy deals won’t be unaffected either, as one to two-year deals will be priced above default tariffs, in anticipation of those rising prices.

So how can solar panels help?

Put simply, they can help provide your business with greater energy security, helping to insulate you from the effects of these global fluctuations. Complete dependence on the National Grid is the norm for most businesses, but that dependence can also create a vulnerability, as it means any instability on a national level often gets passed to individual commercial consumers.

Commercial solar panels, on the other hand, give you a unique opportunity to generate your own power on-site. That can shield your organisation from some of the most common issues associated with the National Grid. When there’s an outage for example, you can simply switch to your backup reserves of power generated from your solar panels, so that you don’t have to deal with the momentous cost or hassle that downtime can cause.

Equally, this energy security means that you’re less affected by market instability, insulating you from exponentially rising energy prices. All this can add up to significant savings, especially in the current crisis. It’s a situation that’s probably not going to fix itself overnight, so if you’d prefer to sidestep those rising bills, there’s never been a better time to ask about commercial solar panels for your premises.

That’s exactly where we can help here at Low Carbon Energy. We have more than 30 years of experience in providing bespoke, effective solar panel solutions for businesses across a wide range of sectors, including manufacturing, aerospace and agriculture. Feel free to take a look through our case studies for just a couple of examples of what we can do – or to find out how we can help you, just give us a call on 01282 421 489!