The business
The Atlantic Hotel sits on the coast in Tenby, Wales. It's owned by the South Wales Miners Welfare Trust Fund Scheme — a charity controlled by trustees, which means every pound of overhead saved goes back into the trust's mission rather than into private profit.
Like most independent hotels, energy is the second-biggest line on the cost sheet after staff. Unlike most independent hotels, the site has nine separate meters — a legacy of years of extensions, refits, and changing use of the building.
The problem
The hotel's bookkeeper, Andrew, had recently taken on responsibility for the energy contracts. What he found was familiar to anyone who's looked at a UK business energy bill in the last three years:
- Unit rates locked in at levels well above current wholesale prices
- Multiple meters with mismatched contracts and renewal dates
- A fixed-term agreement that — on the face of it — looked impossible to escape
Most operators in this position assume they have to wait out the contract before they can act. They don't. The trick is knowing what to ask the supplier for.
The solution: "blend and extend"
A "blend and extend" tariff is a deal that suppliers will offer to customers locked into above-market unit rates. Rather than break the contract (which usually has heavy exit fees), the supplier agrees to blend the existing high rate with current lower market prices, producing a new, lower unit rate — in exchange for the customer extending the contract by 12 or 24 months.
It's a win for both sides: the supplier keeps the customer longer, the customer pays less from day one. The catch is that most operators don't know these deals exist, and suppliers don't volunteer them.
For the Atlantic Hotel, the partner network negotiated a blend-and-extend deal across the site's meters. It delivered £31,000 of cost savings. Variable-rate meters were also secured and tied into proper contracts, so the next renewal cycle starts from a clean position rather than another scramble.
What the bookkeeper said
"As soon as I spoke to the team, we were on the same wavelength on how to mitigate costs. Accessing the blend and extend scheme was a no-brainer. Metering was an issue for us — we had nine on-site, and they worked with us to gather all of the relevant information so we could become more organised. Going forward, the business can look towards streamlining costs and, hopefully, increasing buying power at their next contract renewal."— Andrew, Bookkeeper, Atlantic Hotel
What this means for your hotel
If you're a UK hotel, B&B, or hospitality operator and you've been told you can't switch because of a fixed contract — that's not the whole story. There are tools available that work within your existing agreement, not against it. The question is whether anyone has actually looked.
That's what a Switchgrid free audit does: 24-48 hours, no obligation, no follow-up pressure, and a clear answer on whether your contract is hiding a blend-and-extend opportunity or something similar.