Additionally, small businesses are also having to cope with unreliable energy supply, which is having a detrimental impact on the day-to-day running of their businesses.
The survey, by comparison website Software Advice, of small- to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Australia revealed that the rising cost of energy is forcing business owners to find ways to cut their energy costs to remain viable.
The survey revealed that while 38 per cent of the respondents had not experienced electricity outages over the past 12 months, 21 per cent said they were expecting to experience them over the next few months.
Of those who had experienced electricity outages (42 per cent), 53 per cent of the respondents said that their company experienced two to four outages this year, 23 per cent of them said they have experienced only one, 19 per cent said they had five to seven outages,3 per cent said eight to 10 outages, while the remaining 2 per cent experienced more than 10 outages this year.
In terms of the average duration of such outages, 39 per cent of the respondents said that the average duration was 30 minutes to less than one hour, 37 per cent of them said that it was one hour to less than three hours, 17 per cent of the surveyed respondents agreed to have experienced outages lasting less than 30 minutes, 6 per cent said to have experienced electricity outages for three hours to less than six hours, and the remaining 1 per cent said that the average time was six hours or more.
In regard to increase in energy prices, 95 per cent of respondents have seen an increase in electricity costs, and of these, 43 per cent said that the prices have significantly increased.
Forty per cent said that they have slightly increased and they expect them to increase even more, while 12 per cent said that the cost of electricity has only slightly increased.
The majority of respondents said the increase in electricity prices had impacted their business’s performance — with 42 per cent saying that the impact was minimal and 39 per cent saying it was substantial.
To try and cope with the increase in prices, 53 per cent said they had reduced their energy consumption, 39 per cent said they had modified their processes by doing things like using less electrical involvement, 25 per cent said that they had installed their own renewable energy system, 24 per cent said they installed less energy-consuming electrical systems, and 8 per cent said they stopped production in peak hours.
