National Express Bus has partnered with SQE and Zenobē to overhaul how power is procured for the operator’s growing zero-emission fleet in a move that the parties say will cut costs, manage risk, and reduce emissions.
The two-year collaborative agreement provides National Express Bus with an end-to-end power management solution for its battery-electric vehicles and enables the operator to move away from a traditional fixed-price energy contract.
SQE – which is an energy supply platform for large industrial and commercial users – will provide a dynamic procurement model that will enable Zenobē to manage 47GWh of renewable energy, supporting the operator’s ambition around growing its zero-emission fleet.
Using the solution, National Express Bus has moved from the more conventional approach that Zenobē says “can expose organisations to significant cost risk during periods of market volatility.”
Instead, the model facilitated by the SQE platform allows the operator to buy electricity through Zenobē’s power procurement team at live wholesale prices, and sell unused energy back to the grid when consumption is lower than forecast.
SQE and Zenobē work together to protect the bus fleet’s energy budget against market volatility while ensuring that power is purchased, managed and reconciled efficiently. That is well-suited to National Express Bus, where up to 90% of energy consumption occurs overnight when vehicles are charging.
Speaking about the development, National Express Bus parent Mobico’s Head of Strategic Sourcing Roy Brewer says: “As volatility in the energy market continues, we need to be smarter about how we buy energy. SQE and Zenobē’s approach is a breath of fresh air in corporate energy procurement.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with SQE – a market disruptor that genuinely understands our needs and has given us the most cost-effective route to energy procurement.
“Corporate energy procurement is historically complex, but its line-by-line, transparent invoicing – which gives us access to site-specific half-hourly data – has enabled us to truly understand, and report on, where and how we are using energy.”
SQE Founder and CEO Chris Bowden adds that commercial and industrial users are seeing “an urgent need to abandon a passive, analogue approach to energy consumption to establish a strategy that manages risk exposure and generates revenue – turning energy into a competitive advantage.”
He notes how the tripartite work with National Express Bus and Zenobē illustrates how costs can be cut, risk can be managed, and energy procurement can be aligned with sustainability goals.
