Manchester’s hospitality sector continues to face increasing pressure from rising energy costs, tighter operational margins and sustainability expectations arising from landlords, lenders and corporate customers.

Hotels, restaurants, bars and leisure venues are among the most energy-intensive commercial environments, often operating long hours while balancing guest comfort and experience. Here are 10 practical ways hospitality operators can better understand, manage and reduce their energy costs.

1. Know What You Use, And When

Data visibility is key to understanding and managing energy consumption. Start with 12 months of consumption and spend for every meter, plotted monthly to highlight peaks, patterns and unusual usage across sites.

A non-half-hourly (NHH) meter tells you how much energy you use, but not when. Half-hourly data, via a smart meter or AMR, provides readings every 30 minutes, helping identify peak and out-of-hours consumption. If you don’t have this data, ask your broker or supplier whether AMR or a smart meter is already installed.

2. Never Fall Out of Contract

Every gas and electricity supply has a fixed contract end date. If a replacement isn’t agreed in time, you can be moved onto significantly higher out-of-contract rates.

Build a live contract register covering every meter, supplier, contract end date and renewal trigger, ideally starting the process at least 12 months ahead.

3. Buy Forward, Buy in Stages

Energy markets can be volatile, influenced by geopolitical events, LNG disruption and low European gas storage. Buying energy in stages can help spread risk, average your position and reduce exposure to short-term price spikes. Smaller operators may also access this approach through basket or collective purchasing arrangements.

4. Find What Never Switches Off

Energy consumption can continue long after a venue closes. Use half-hourly data to compare your lowest and peak consumption and identify excessive out-of-hours usage.

Then walk the building. Extraction fans, cellar coolers, lighting, kitchen equipment and hot water systems can all consume energy when they don’t need to.

5. Check Your Controls

Check heating and cooling schedules against actual trading hours, seasonal changes and function bookings. Review temperature setpoints and make sure heating and cooling aren’t operating against each other.

Small changes to controls can reduce wasted energy without requiring capital investment.

6. Stop Paying for Headroom

Most half-hourly sites have an Authorised Supply Capacity (ASC), measured in kVA. You pay for this capacity whether you use it or not.

Compare your maximum demand with the capacity on your bill. If there is consistently significant headroom, speak to your broker about whether it could be reduced.

7. Check What You Qualify For

Understand which energy relief schemes your business or individual sites may qualify for. The Climate Change Agreement (CCA), for example, can provide significant CCL discounts for eligible energy-intensive processes, including some central production units, bakeries and cold stores.

8. Build the Data Once

Larger hospitality businesses may need to comply with schemes such as ESOS and SECR. Both require accurate energy data by site and fuel.

Maintaining one centralised, meter-level dataset makes reporting easier and turns compliance data into useful management information.

9. Champion Energy

Energy champions can help turn good intentions into lasting habits. A simple shut-down procedure, with a named person responsible for checking key equipment, can make a real difference.

The Carbon Trust estimates that well-designed behaviour change programmes can reduce consumption by 3–5%. Build energy awareness into staff induction and regularly review performance.

10. Include Energy in Design Decisions

Refurbishments provide an important opportunity to improve energy performance. Consider energy use when selecting equipment, lighting and controls, rather than focusing only on upfront costs.

The Carbon Trust estimates that optimising a building during refurbishment can create energy cost savings of up to 40%. Think about what each option will cost to run, not just what it costs to buy.