Renewable energy and natural resources sector advisory consulting

Expert advice for your businesses amid the energy transition.

Energy businesses operate in a fast-moving, complex and regulated environment with a unique set of challenges:

Intense political scrutiny, as the government pursues the de-carbonisation of the energy system alongside a potential doubling of energy demand
A shifting competitive landscape amid large oil and gas groups successfully pivoting to renewables, game-changing M&A, high levels of insolvencies and competitive pressure from technology-enabled disruptive new players
Regulatory pressures on revenue, margins and cash, including price caps in the supply market, renewable obligation certificate (ROC) recovery mechanisms, and balancing and distribution costs
Enforced changes to processes from the Faster Switching programme and additional protections for vulnerable customers
Changing market conditions for renewable generation developments, including subsidy removals and planning restrictions, reducing margins and limiting funding availability

Our partner-led advisory consulting services offer strategic support to deliver the best solution for your energy business. Combining deep industry experience with commercial acumen and data analytics, we identify root causes and work to optimise performance.

Advice across the energy industry

Energy supply

Generating returns is getting harder for energy supply businesses. Those failing to invest in technology, data and analytics risk being undercut by leaner competitors working hard to acquire, serve and retain customers. Tech-focused operating models are disruptive, elevating staff-to-customer ratios into the thousands.

We see energy supply businesses as operating in two main areas: customers and data technology. Those firms excelling at both have a significant competitive advantage.

We combine data-driven analytics with a deep understanding of the UK energy supply market to enable firms to work smarter. We tailor our services to meet your requirements:

Revenue and cost assurance

We reconcile dataflows and database information to minimise revenue leakage and leave you with the tools for ongoing activity. Our data analytics tools and live dashboards can show the high-level opportunity for improvement and pinpoint optimisation areas, whether through the settlements process, billing or recovery of overpaid costs
Margin and operational efficiency maximisation

We combine segmented analytical reviews of margin with consideration of the pricing strategy to pinpoint optimisation opportunities. Much of the direct cost base is fixed across the UK, so we target operational efficiency efforts on the costs that are more controllable
Working capital optimisation

With a focus on the more controllable elements of the working capital cycle, such as customer debt. We analyse, identify key risk areas and provide targeted recommendations for improvements. These are aligned with existing dunning collection processes
Key performance indicator dashboards

The competitive battleground amongst suppliers in the UK energy supply market is increasingly dominated by the optimisation of four key customer ratios: cost to serve, cost to acquire, cost to retain and staff to customer ratios. We can build these and other company-specific tailored KPIs into live dashboards to help focus leaders’ time and attention
Integrated financial forecasting

The ability to accurately forecast customer numbers and settlement volumes is arguably the critical success factor in energy supply. It requires financial forecasting to be constantly aligned with trading forecasts. We can pull together these multiple sources into one, easy to understand output
Cashflow forecasting and management

We can help build a rolling 13-week cashflow forecast that can be easily updated and highlights risk areas caused by material industry cost payments. We also provide pragmatic recommendations to mitigate those risks
Cost optimisation, reduction and streamlining

We combine benchmarking with zero-based budgeting and propose areas for improvements. We also review procurement processes and practices, with a focus on pricing, economies of scale and payment terms. We recommend transitions to leaner operating models while resolving legacy data issues to mitigate future cost risks
Robotic process automation (RPA)

We identify RPA opportunities to automate repetitive activity, using computer-coded software that works across functions and systems in a single process (such as between billing and finance systems). This mimics human actions on systems and minimises transactional workloads, freeing up time for analytical, value-added work or providing opportunities to reduce costs
Customer journey reviews

We map and review the customer journey, identifying improvements to operational effectiveness and customer satisfaction. We analyse root causes of complaints, billing adjustments and call centre contacts, and recommend changes to processes or data capture points to minimise them
Compliance support

Including Feed in Tariff (FiT) annual certification
Mergers and acquisitions

With a full transaction service offering, S&W can identify and support acquisitions, disposals and spin offs

Natural resources and renewable energy consultancy

The new world of subsidy-free renewable generation asset development is tough. Subsidy removal has significantly reduced the margins and assets’ lifetime value, increasing funders’ risk and borrowing costs. Rollout of newer technology, such as anaerobic digestion, has also been problematic, with funders increasingly reluctant to invest in less established areas.

The need for storage to balance the grid as renewable generation increases remains a big opportunity. But accessing funding and providing proof of concept for investors is challenging for newer technologies.

Development businesses must continually evolve their business model, moving through technologies and geographies to fulfil market demands.

We combine industry knowledge and commercial acumen to support our clients across the renewable development sector with tailored services. These include cost and operational efficiency optimisation, funding advice, strategic options for changing energy markets and an integrated services offering.

We’ve delivered successful projects and solutions for a wide range of renewable generation asset development organisations:

Operational transformation for a high growth development group, redesigning organisational processes and obtaining funding
RPA implementation to radically reduce data entry and manual processing time between billing and finance systems and to update settlements data
Acquisition and integration projects (including through Ofgem’s Supplier of Last Resort process) aligning processes and procedures with a focus on regulatory requirements
Enhancing operational efficiency with streamlining and implementation support to embed cost reductions
Using technology and data analysis for revenue and cost assurance, improving the net position and including reporting for settlements corrections
Implementing live debtor reporting and analytics to identify improvement areas, along with operational process changes to minimise bad debt risks
Developing strategic plans for whole groups and the finance function, with technology investment reviews to provide optionality over investment levels and visibility of how each supports strategic objectives
Reviewing a supplier’s financial forecast. We challenged and tested assumptions to help improve the methodology and develop a fully integrated model, identifying funding gaps and suggesting mitigations
Implementing live dashboards to track KPIs’ delivery, with drilldowns and performance tracking by division for customer debt, revenue and cost assurance
Resolution projects, including data cleansing/alignment, backlog clearance projects
Finance support during the implementation of a new customer billing system to align with finance processes and ensure optimal financial controls for credit balance refunds