Government’s bill-slashing, energy-saving scheme is now open to more hospitality businesses

A scheme to help pubs and restaurants save money on their energy bills by giving them access to a digital energy-saving tool has now come out of pilot and is now open for applications from pubs, hotels and restaurants. 

A trial version of the scheme was originally launched in May 2025 and was run for a year with 90 businesses involved. During this time, the energy-saving tool slashed their bills by an average of nearly £2,500.

In this next phase, the government wants a larger cohort of businesses to use the tool and see if the positive results are replicable on a larger scale.

Energy-saving tool goes down a treat

As we just covered, the average business in the trial saved £2,500 on its energy bills. For one pub involved, this worked out at £48 a week, or a 26% reduction overall. 

Another pub used the tool to cut down its overnight energy spend, reducing it by around 66%, which works out at £1,500 over the course of the year. 

“Thanks to the energy and carbon reduction tool, we’re already looking to save £5.01 each day from a few easy-to-implement changes”, Mark Holden, Company Director of trial participants Inn Cornwall, explains in the government’s press release.

“We will do this across our other sites, which could mean we’ll save £5,400 a year”, he continues. “The Energy and Carbon Reduction Tool is going to help save a lot of family businesses in the hospitality sector.”

Who is eligible to use the tool, and how do you apply?

The energy-saving tool, which is being delivered by Zero Carbon Services and backed by £350,000 in government funding, is now open for wider roll-out. The Government is calling for 525 businesses to take part. 

It’s not open to absolutely everyone, however. Eligible businesses will have an annual turnover of less than or equal to £44 million and a balance sheet total of less than or equal to £38 million. They must have fewer than 250 full-time equivalent staff, too.

The application also asks businesses to confirm they are not already the recipient of government support or financial assistance “for this or related purposes”.

If chosen, the business will need to give Zero Carbon Services access to their smart meter, which must be a business meter and not one for domestic use. They will then receive “behavioural change focused energy saving plans tailored to participants through the digital tool, providing real-time alerts to reduce unnecessary electricity use from wasted energy hotspots including extraction systems, fridges, ovens and lamps,” explains the Government.

Easing the energy burden

The success of the trial period and wider rollout will fall on welcome ears, especially considering the nuclear levy announced in November of last year and the inevitable rise in energy prices that will come as a result of the US-Israeli war with Iran. 

This month, the trade association UKHospitality once again petitioned the government and regulators to help businesses manage the inflationary impact of energy costs aggravated by the escalating conflict in the Middle East. But the issue goes back much, much further.

As one of our columnists, Matt Harris, wrote in November: “energy costs have been crippling the F&B sector for the last few years”. He added: “With many, many of us still locked into high-rate contracts, it’s a genuine business survival issue.”

Indeed, as far back as 2021, payment provider Tyl by NatWest found that 70% of SME owners believed that the cost of their energy bill had a negative effect on the growth of their business. This makes the savings made during the trial period using this new tool all the more impressive.

Other ways for hospitality businesses to keep energy costs down

176,685 businesses were operating in the UK hospitality sector as of March 2025, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics. This scheme will help a total of 615, if the trial scheme participants are included. 

For now, the rest of the industry will have to think about other ways to save on energy. Startups.co.uk columnist and bar owner, Harris, suggests checking refrigeration seals, getting smart meter data analysis and trying small-scale staff incentive schemes for energy saving for a start. He has also installed energy-efficient infrared heaters and now uses a steam (not gas!) oven at one venue. 

Thinking about energy security in the longer term, pubs need to “unshackle themselves from the chaos of the gas markets”, argues Maximilian Schwerdtfeger, Deputy Editor of Ecoexperts.

“How do they do that?” he continued. “The answer is solar panels, as only these will give them the independent source of energy they need to be free from the huge spikes in prices that we’re seeing at the moment.”

Hospitality businesses will hopefully entertain these options before taking more drastic measures, such as serving warmer beer – a suggestion Energy Secretary Ed Miliband made to pubs this week. With energy bills expected to “heap an extra £169m a year onto pubs’ costs, the Telegraph says, pubs will have no choice but to pass costs onto customers. Whether a warm pint will go down more smoothly than a price increase, though, remains to be seen. 

Crucially, all hospitality businesses should be taking detailed notes of when their energy usage is highest and why. Also, as Harris suggests, getting employees on board when it comes to energy usage awareness. This might be the least disruptive route and, most importantly, will definitely not aggravate your customers, which is pretty key in these turbulent times.  

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Planet of the Grapes founder Matt Harris has over 25 years of experience in hospitality. Read his bi-monthly column for Startups now.

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