Business energy comparison: how to read a quote properly

A commercial electricity bill is built from several layers. There is the commodity cost — the wholesale energy itself — and then a stack of non-commodity charges that cover moving that energy across the transmission and distribution networks, running the settlement system, and funding government policy schemes. Transmission network use of system (TNUoS), distribution use of system (DUoS), balancing services (BSUoS), the Climate Change Levy, and the various policy costs together frequently make up more of the delivered price than the commodity element does.

Suppliers treat that stack in different ways. A fully fixed quote wraps a forecast of those charges into a single unit rate and carries the forecasting risk. A pass-through quote prices the commodity and then bills the non-commodity elements at whatever they turn out to be. A partially fixed quote sits somewhere between the two, typically fixing the larger network charges and passing through the volatile remainder. Placed side by side on a spreadsheet, the pass-through quote will almost always look cheaper, because a chunk of the cost simply is not in the number yet.

So the first question on any comparison is not "what is the rate" but "what is inside the rate". Until that is established for every quote in the set, the exercise is arithmetic on incompatible figures.

Every serious quote starts from the supply itself. For electricity that means the MPAN — the supply number printed on the bill, whose top line encodes the profile class, meter time-switch code, line loss factor and distribution area. For gas it means the MPRN. Those identifiers tell a supplier where the meter sits on the network, and network position materially changes the delivered price: the same consumption in two different distribution areas does not cost the same.

Alongside the identifier, a supplier needs twelve months of consumption, ideally as half-hourly data rather than an annual quantity. Annual consumption gives volume; half-hourly data gives shape, and shape is what determines exposure to peak-period network charges. Two sites consuming 250,000 kWh a year can carry quite different costs if one runs a flat daytime load and the other peaks through winter evenings.

Then the contractual detail: current contract end date, notice or termination position, and whether the site is currently on a deemed or out-of-contract rate. Timing is not administrative trivia here — a quote priced against wholesale on one day is a different quote a fortnight later, and contract end dates govern when a tender can realistically be run.

Market-wide Half Hourly Settlement moves the industry away from settling non-half-hourly meters against estimated profile-class averages and towards settling them on actual half-hourly consumption data. For comparison purposes the consequence is straightforward: a site whose load genuinely sits outside the average for its profile class stops being averaged into it. Businesses with off-peak or weekend weighted consumption gain something they could not previously demonstrate; sites concentrated in peak periods lose a subsidy they were never aware of receiving.

This is worth raising in any comparison conducted around a change of settlement arrangements, because a quote based on an estimated annual quantity and a quote based on actual interval data are answering slightly different questions. Where the data exists, ask that quotes are priced from it.

1. Is this fully fixed, partially fixed or pass-through — and which charges are in which bucket?
2. Which non-commodity elements are forecast inside the unit rate, and at what assumed level?
3. Is the standing charge daily, per meter, and does it change during the term?
4. Is the Climate Change Levy included or added, and does any relief apply?
5. What consumption volume is the quote based on, and what happens if actual volume differs?
6. How long does the price hold, and what triggers a re-price?
7. What are the payment terms, security or deposit requirements, and credit conditions?
8. What is the termination position and notice requirement at the end of the term?

Run every quote through the same eight and the spread usually narrows sharply. The cheapest headline rate is frequently not the cheapest contract, and the difference is rarely hidden — it is simply in a section of the offer that a rate-only comparison never reaches.

We build and market websites for UK energy brokers, TPIs and comparison platforms, and the pattern we see repeatedly is that pages written at consumer reading level attract consumer-grade enquiries. A procurement director comparing suppliers for a multi-site portfolio is looking for evidence that the intermediary understands pass-through structures, network charging and settlement before they hand over consumption data. Content that demonstrates that understanding does more qualifying work than any form field.

That is the thinking behind how we approach business energy SEO and programmatic SEO for energy sites: depth on the terms buyers actually search, rather than volume for its own sake. Our independent analyses of energy broker websites look at how the sector currently handles this in practice.