EDF Energy’s Business Customer Commitments: four key pledges

Hot on the heels of E.ON’s Rest Review for business energy customers, EDF Energy has unveiled its Business Customer Commitments. So what are they and what do they mean for your business?

Is the sky the limit for EDF's business energy customers? Image by LaurenTucker Photography via Flickr

Vincent de Rivaz’s speech at the EDF Energy Talk Power Conference, where he unveiled the new Business Customer Commitments, had three themes: 'Fair Value', 'Better Service' and 'Simplicity'. But beyond these three themes, as I see it, there were four main announcements:

1. Short-term contracts, with no termination fee, for start-ups.

There will be new ‘good-value fixed term contracts, lasting months rather than years’ for entrepreneurs and start-ups. Crucially, these contracts won’t have termination fees, which will give new businesses the flexibility they need while they’re growing. We think this is a fantastic decision by EDF; it could be a real game changer and is exactly what a many new businesses are crying out for.

2. Visi, a real-time energy dashboard.

EDF Energy previewed Visi, a new real-time energy dashboard service. It’s inspired by the energy monitoring system that EDF has developed for the Olympic Games, and the company hopes it will help larger businesses to educate and change the behaviour of staff when it comes to energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is of growing importance to all businesses as prices rise, so this is interesting, but the concept isn’t groundbreaking; other similar services exist, for example Carbon Trust Empower, or on a smaller scale, British Gas’s Business Energy Insight.

 3. Simplification of prices.  

EDF already has a single unit rate for its small business customers, but Mr de Rivaz said that there would be further simplification. We’re a little cautious about this - simplicity is great, but not if it means higher bills. For some businesses, a simple single-rate tariff is ideal, but for others multi-rate tariffs or tariffs with different day and night/evening and weekend rates offer great value for money. (Which is why it’s so important to get an overview of the market and make sure the tariff you sign up to really does offer the best value for your business.)

4. Better bills

Mr de Rivaz also announced that EDF would be introducing a ‘far simpler bill’ which would bear the Plain English Crystal Mark. Having for worked for uSwitch, which has the Plain English Internet Crystal Mark, I can tell you that the Plain English standard really means something and isn’t easy to attain, so hopefully this will mean bills which are easy to understand, and, most importantly, easy to act on.