Consumed by a cost of living crisis, the UK is currently seeing price increases across the board. Food costs are rising as fuel, taxes, and inflation all hit record highs. And with the energy price cap rising by 54%, it means electricity and gas prices are surging. And the energy costs are affecting all businesses too. So what can households and businesses do to try and combat the spiralling energy costs?

Energy price cap rises

While the much-publicised energy price cap has increased the average energy bill by around £650 per person for households – and is set to rise again in April 2023 – there’s actually no price cap at all in place for businesses. Energy suppliers can raise their out-of-contract rates as much as they like to cover increased wholesale costs, with rises of up to 100% since August 2021.

This level of increase is crippling for households and unsustainable for any business. Besides trying to switch to a fixed-term tariff, households can currently only receive low-level rebates and loans to ease the pressure. But for businesses, the only way to protect against price hikes is to switch to a new fixed-term business energy tariff. While it might be higher than you’re used to, it can prevent further hikes during the course of your contract.

Energy-saving tips

As is often the case when you’re trying to find ways to reduce outgoings, there are commercial schemes for businesses to try and reduce spiralling electricity costs, including grants for installing solar panels to generate green electricity, minimising costs and emissions.

And households can make small changes to minimise the impact. Using LED light bulbs, dropping heating temperatures even by 1º, draught-proofing windows and doors, and running washing machines and dishwashers less frequently can all help reduce costs over the course of a year.

But if you’re a big tea drinker, or especially if your staff like to have multiple tea rounds throughout the day at work, installing a hot water dispenser can help make big savings on energy and money.

The average kettle holds 1.5 litres of water, taking roughly 3-minutes to boil, using 0.1kWh of electricity in the process. If you have a team of 10 drinking an average of 3 tea rounds a day, that could mount up to about £500 a year in electricity costs – not to mention the time wasted waiting for the kettle to boil!

Energy cost reductions on hot water dispensers

Every hot water dispenser is designed for complete energy efficiency, making them as cost-effective as possible to run. Capable of producing up to 28 litres of pure-filtered, 96º hot water every hour, the dispenser will go into standby mode to keep it hot all day for less than £1 a day.

One of our most popular, entry-level hot water dispensers can give you a constant supply of hot water on demand for a team of 10 people, using just 0.066 kW per hour which can actually be around just 16p a day – much cheaper than boiling a kettle over and over again.

If you want to see how much you could be saving by using a hot water dispenser, our boiler-saving calculator could surprise you.

Let Thirsty Work help reduce your energy costs

The cost of living crisis is not easy and things look likely to get worse before they get better. But if Thirsty Work can help you save energy and money by installing a water dispenser – whether at home or at work – contact our customer service team to start saving today. Call 01392 877 172 or email hello@thirstywork.com to start your free trial now!