CHALLENGE

Teesside University is a vibrant campus in North East England with a history of environmentally-friendly practices, as evidenced by its Eco Campus Gold award. The University has launched its £300m Campus Masterplan, which provides a blueprint for how the campus will develop over the next decade. The Campus Masterplan will take spending on the campus infrastructure beyond half a billion pounds in recent years. The rapid growth expands the University’s already complex energy requirements and they looked for an experienced partner to help. Teesside sought to streamline their energy management while continuing to reduce carbon emissions and provide more value to its growing student community.

OVERVIEW

In 2013, Kinect Energy Group was awarded the management of Teesside University’s energy program. The tender covered 26GWh of gas and electricity in support of 144 supplies, with sites including lecture rooms, accommodation for 1,000 students, and plant rooms. Later, we were asked to create a risk strategy to protect the University against the volatility of fluctuating gas and electricity markets.

SOLUTION

In partnership with Teesside, we’ve managed the University’s Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) tenders, a complex and time-consuming exercise required for public-sector energy bids. We ensured the University got the best possible energy supplier that would balance value and risk and meet their specific requirements.We also sourced contracts to give Teesside the most attractive terms as well as completely transparent commodity and non-commodity costs without hidden extras. To provide reassurance, we implemented an advanced procurement strategy to support Teesside with the move from long-term fixed positions to a more flexible procurement strategy. A critical part of this transition involved educating key university stakeholders on the rationale of the approach. We held a risk management workshop to discuss the strategy and the benefits, defined an acceptable level of risk, and confirmed all decision-makers were aligned.