With energy prices rising the UK Government has stepped in to place price caps on electricity and gas , but how effective are the caps ? Cameron Roberts finds out

ising energy prices are a key concern for the entire events supply chain , with events often taking place using the finest of margins and typically using large amounts of energy – rising costs could spell doom for many a conference .

The UK Government has stepped in to introduce a price cap under the Energy Bill Relief Scheme , which gives businesses a discount based on a government supported price of 21.1p per kilowatt hour ( KWh ) for electricity and 7.5p per KWh for gas .

But does this cap go far enough to ensure businesses can still operate at a profit ? I spoke to Duncan Reid , CEO and co-founder , Reset Connect and Charles Sargeant , managing director , Whittlebury Park about how the caps work in practice and where cost increases will crop up for organisers .

Legislation in action

On the face of it , capping the price of energy is no bad thing , but the industry is still only in the early

“ We would be seeing an increase in our electricity bill of 560 %, which is enormous . To put that into monetary terms , our annual electricity bill for the park is … estimated to go up to about £ 3.3m without the energy price cap .”

Charles Sargeant

stages of how it works in practice . Venues are taking the brunt of the cost increase as it currently stands , so just how high are the price increases expected to be ?

Charles Sargeant , managing director , Whittlebury Park , said : “ We would be seeing an increase in our electricity bill of 560 %, which is enormous . To put that into monetary terms , our annual electricity bill for the park is

Duncan Reid

normally about half a million pounds a year . It ’ s estimated to go up to about £ 3.3m without the energy price cap .”

The price cap introduced by the government has reduced this to a 50 % increase in the price of wholesale energy prices according to Sargeant . Which , he remarks , is obviously preferable to a 560 % increase .

“ Of course , it ’ s not that simple ,” continued Sargeant , “ the business energy cap is different to the consumer energy cap , because the energy cap is on the wholesale price that we pay for electricity . So , when a business gets its energy bill , the wholesale price of the energy is only 29 % of your electricity bill . In our case , we ’ ll probably end up paying a new rate of around 46p per KWh , which is still a 230 % increase on what we ’ re currently paying .”

While the cap is obviously helping on the price front , it ’ s an