Tempus launches offer to reward flexible customers

Newly licensed electricity supplier Tempus Energy has launched a new offer, giving flexible customers the opportunity to access lower tariffs.

The offer is targeted at business and domestic users of Tempus’ demand-flexibility technology, who have appliances that can be managed remotely.

Customers are able to decide how flexible they want to be with their electricity usage, with more flexible customers “enjoying higher savings”.

Flexible domestic customers will be able to access tariffs as low as 10.9 pence per kWh (plus VAT), with no standing charge, compared with the 11 to 16 pence per kWh standard tariffs offered by the bix six energy firms.

The supplier’s founder and chief executive Sara Bell said customers deserve a system which is “smart and efficient enough” to deliver value for customers as well as profits for generators.

She said: “Tempus Energy will trade power in a completely different way, which reduces costs at every single point in the supply chain, including network and imbalance costs. We are free to pass these savings onto customers because we don’t own generation stations, so we have no incentive to buy expensive peak-time power.”

In a joint statement with the supplier Energy and Climate Change Committee chairman Tim Yeo emphasised the importance of demand-side response technology in “driving down the cost of low-carbon electricity” and hailed Tempus’ offer as a “significant moment for supply market competition”.

Tempus is a supplier of both energy and demand-management solutions. Last year, the firm developed a technology platform capable of automatically shifting usage away from expensive peak times into lower price periods, for example at night or when renewable-generation activity is high.

The equipment is automated, so doesn’t require understanding of the energy system and allows customers to reduce their energy bill and carbon emissions simultaneously.

Tempus has been vocal in its criticism of the government’s “unfair” prioritisation of fossil fuels over demand-side options.

In December last year, 12 days before the UK government’s first capacity market auction was due to begin, the firm mounted a legal challenge against the auction, which it said discriminates against demand-side response (DSR) technologies.

Despite increased financial risk for participants, the government decided to move ahead with its plans for the auction.

At the time, speculation from Labour MP John Robertson that the company was created soley as a vehicle for mounting a legal challenge was brushed off by Bell, who said the firm believed “strongly” in a competitive market.

The predominance of large, multibillion-pound incumbents in the energy market has forced new energy entrants to adopt mor einnovative approaches to energy supply in order to set themselves apart from larger companies. Read Utility Week’s full analysis here.