BALBIRNIE'S GAS AND ELECTRIC CONTRACTS SECURED FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS!

Meeting prospective future new wedding clients is always the most special part of my working week. We are usually fully booked in advance for weekend mornings,  at 10am, 11am, and 12 noon. No appointments thereafter, as we never have new client showrounds when an event is actually taking place at Balbirnie House. 

So here we are in 2022 albeit on rare occasions, prospective new future wedding clients are telling us, that they have perhaps been thinking of making a booking for a wedding venue elsewhere (or indeed they are holding a booking elsewhere), but that the wedding venue is unsure as to their ability to pay today's electric and gas bills, let alone on their wedding day two years into the future. As we are sure everyone can appreciate, and whilst the future is never categorically known, the last thing any wedding couple wishes to do, is book a wedding venue, only for the wedding to not be able to proceed. 

Without doubt, and due to all combined financial circumstances as always, there are wedding venues today, which will sadly not be able to afford to continue trading. 

Through the 2022 calendar year at Balbirnie House, we are seeing record levels of weddings taking place, and record numbers of future weddings confirming in our special event diaries. Stating the obvious, the busier we get, the more our costs increase, and the more gas and electric it takes to power all that we do.. 

Whilst I knew that energy costs would certainly be going up, at the beginning of 2022 I had no idea about the sheer scale of rising energy costs ahead, but our contracts had reached expiry and we needed to renew both gas and electric. Our sincere thanks to energy broker Chris Race of Fusion for Business, who assisted us with all progress, after much consideration we renewed both contracts with Engie.

We can confirm that we successfully renewed both contracts, and we capped the pricing, and we locked in for a full term of 5 years ahead. 

Whilst our costs have certainly gone up, well at least we know where we are. 

In terms of electric:, as highlighted on our main twitter @BalbirnieHouse 

In terms of gas, we find ourselves in an unprecedented new set of circumstances this year. Through early spring this year we invested circa £140,000 in replacing both of our main boiler systems. The main boiler systems had been in operation for 3 decades, and were not able to be switched off. Fundamentally, this is the first time we have ever been able to split hot water, and central heating. Summer 2022 is the first time we have ever been able to totally switch off the Balbirnie central heating! It'll obviously be back on for the cosy hygge of the winter ahead. Additionally, the brand new systems are more efficient than the old ones. Whilst we obviously need to pay for the new installations, we are now optimistic that the design efficiencies will mean that we will not see the gas costs going up, as much pro rata as the electric. 

Within the Fusion for Business scope, we were also offered a specialised site survey, to help identify any new potential further design efficiencies. This survey was taken across the span of all that we do, across plant rooms, our four kitchens, all plumbing, electrics, and air extract systems. This has been an excellent project, and has however identified a further necessity for further capital investment of £40,000 - which is then expected to deliver new additional annual savings of £27,000 per year. That's a no-brainer, so we are now looking to proceed with this. 

Additionally, we have also formed our own in-house 'Environmental Taskforce', with myself and 7 key members of the brigade meeting on a monthly basis, to consider all possible ways of operating our 1777 category A listed Georgian mansion and all extensions, as efficiently as we can. 

It's the same as what many folk are doing at home. My family and I stay in a very old property in Balbirnie Park, and we recently installed a Smart Meter for electrics. It allows you to walk around the house switching things on and off, and you can then see exactly what it costs to run something per hour. We have certainly made savings! 

At Balbirnie House, the first savings we have actioned, have been to turn our 12 behind-the-scenes workstations off at the wall overnight. Then we also turned off all TVs in all 34 bedrooms, at the wall socket, instead of leaving them on standby - not a single negative comment from any guest since! 

The point in all of this, is that in addition to the many logical environmental improvements, we are looking to do our absolute best as always, to keep on providing as much value as we can, for all current and future customers. Our company auditor confirms that national inflation is currently at 10%. It really is vital therefore, that we look to create all possible efficiencies, so as to continue to create as much value as we possibly can. 

With this in mind, we usually publish next year pricing (wef 1st May) in December each year. So as to provide as much peace of mind as is possible for next year clients, we are going to bring this ahead this year. 

We count our many lucky stars in finding ourselves where we now are today, knowing what we are doing with Balbirnie's energy costs, and having evolving efficiencies in place. 

Many of our hospitality colleagues inadvertently found themselves later this year, out of contracts, and looking to renew when national pricing went into a truly mind-blowing acceleration. 

Thank goodness we capped and locked, because what happened months thereafter defies belief, for example: 

In terms of electricity alone, that's truly shocking! 

For peace of mind, if you are looking to make a future wedding or special event booking, whilst there's such chaos across hospitality, it's certainly worth checking with any venue, (a) do you have energy contracts capped and in place over the intended date of the special occasion?, and (b) are you confident that the venue will be able to successfully trade through to the intended date? 

(I would also recommend you ask if the venue has insurance in place, and for how long? We usually renew insurance annually. This year we successfully switched Balbirnie to historic property specialist Ecclesiastical, and locked in for the first time for 3 years.)

So, onwards we go into the Balbirnie future. We remain as focussed as ever, on doing all we can to keep all aspects of presentation as minted as possible, all behind-the-scenes fully equipped, the brigade fully staffed, and ready for every unique day. 

Over the next 5 years here's hoping that Scotland somehow sorts itself with a totally new energy future. It's so weird to think that here we are, in Scotland 'the Sahara of green energy', but our people and our businesses are not reaping the potential benefits. If anyone is looking for potential answers to this, maybe start by googling 'Who owns the energy companies in Scandinavian countries?' 

All best wishes, 

Nicholas / MD Balbirnie House