“The easiest way to explain what we do is to think of us as a hotel chain for business”, says Peter. “Those businesses select the location and space they want, then they check in. We provide everything for them. They simply pay one monthly sum. Many of our customers will tell you they come to us because they love the flexibility of being able to leave with a month’s notice, but most stay a while – we’ve customers who have been with us more than two decades.”

Over the years Peter has developed his business to redefine the traditional landlord tenant relationship. It means his customers, budding entrepreneurs, can now secure the flexible commercial space their business needs to thrive. Today, Capital Space boasts nine locations, and, in Peter’s words, “is blessed with 51 employees, 1,000 customers and, even in this difficult climate, 90% occupancy rates”.

As Managing Director, Peter is involved with the running of all aspects of his business including utilities, which after payroll are his second largest cost. Back in 2008 Eneco asked Peter if he’d try their services to see if they could improve Capital Space’s energy efficiency. He did and they could. He’s been using Eneco ever since to manage gas, electricity, and water across all his sites.

Peter isn’t tied to Eneco, yet he’s never looked anywhere else – something he admits is unusual, since he regularly shops around when working with other service providers.

“There are lots of people who say they will do things for you, but not so many who deliver. Eneco do what we ask them very promptly, they get us lots of market information to help us keep abreast of where utilities are, and they are proactive. When you’ve got someone stepping forward with great ideas and initiatives that you don’t even request – that’s worth having.”

He cites an example from Spring 2020 when the coronavirus lockdown got serious. Eneco noticed that one of Capital Space’s energy contracts was due to run out in the Autumn. Despite that contract still having six months left to run, Eneco proactively picked up the phone to Peter.

“They said to me: ‘Look, the price of gas is very, very, low right now because it’s not being used as much as people thought it would. By the end of the year, when you come to renew, that might have all changed – prices might go back up. Why don’t you trade in and tie into a new contract now?’ That was a great piece of proactive work, Eneco were right, and I got a steal of a deal.”

Capital Space spotted early on that it was burdensome and expensive for their customers to independently source their own utilities, so Peter took their pain away by taking utilities under his wing. It means across their nine sites Capital Space has a few hundred meters. And it didn’t take Peter long to realise just how perverse the energy industry is.

“If you have a big meter but you only use a small amount of electric – the energy company charges you for having a large meter – it doesn’t matter that you only use a tiny amount of power. So, Eneco started by ensuring we had the right sized meters in place. Then energy companies will ask you to estimate how much power you are going to use, and, if you don’t use it, they penalise you. So Eneco got a handle on our energy usage. Monitoring that data not only helps us make better predictions but spot when something doesn’t look right.”

Peter Boam, Founder of Capital Space

Having eliminated unnecessary costs and wastage, Eneco then worked to get the best deals for all Capital Space’s utilities. They began by harmonising all Capital Space’s meter end dates.

“We’ve largely managed to group all our meter end dates now under three umbrella contracts, so we don’t have that perpetual contract renewal. The energy companies go out of their way to make it difficult and, if we could align everything to the same date we would, but that hasn’t yet proved possible.

Eneco have done their best to streamline the whole operation though and that’s massively reduced the administrative burden of keeping up with so many contractual end dates.”

There’s a cost benefit to that harmonisation too, as Eneco are now able to go to the market and get the best deal for the utilities Capital Space needs.

Abigail Courtin, Energy Expert at Eneco Consulting

“Abby is our contact at Eneco. She’s a real energy expert and this is where her skills come in. You’d think inviting the market to quote for all our energy would get us the best price, wouldn’t you? But that almost never happens,” says Peter.

“Often, it’s better to get a price for each of our three umbrella contracts.  And the swings in price can vary greatly when retendering. Sometimes the biggest umbrella contract is best, other times the smallest attracts the smallest price – that’s the perversity of the energy market.

Abby guides us through all that though. She’ll always go out to the market with a variety of combinations to see what the market is going to do.”

One distinctive aspect of Capital Space’s business model is that it owns and occupies all its buildings – something that beyond public ownership rarely happens in the property world. It means Capital Space is uniquely placed to benefit from generating its own energy.

“Photovoltaics are a jolly efficient way of converting sunshine into electricity, but they only really work if you can use that electricity yourself,” says Peter.

Photovoltaic panels on site at Capital Space

Capital Space has lots of roofs. Under those roofs are a variety of industries all working from when the sun comes up until it goes down.  Peter’s business is in a great position to use the energy that sunshine generates.

“We’ve been working closely with Eneco to determine; the optimum amount of energy-generating photovoltaics we can put on our roofs; how we are going to deal with them, and; what contracts we can get from utility companies.”

Energy generation is a special interest for Capital Space but, even excluding those conversations about renewables, Peter says, “he’s often chatting with Eneco about all sorts of things in the utilities world and what it means for his business.”

Eneco Consulting has been partnering with Capital Space for more than a decade. In the last two years alone Eneco has helped them secure savings of around £25,000. And their relationship continues to evolve. Peter is currently exploring the commercial viability of a battery to store surplus energy generated by his photovoltaics, which could, over time, afford Capital Space even further cost savings.