Within steel manufacturing, energy is a fundamental operational input – impacting reliability, cost management and customer expectations across key industries such as construction, automotive and engineering.
Tata Steel UK is one of the country’s largest steel producers, supplying essential materials to these sectors from sites across the UK. With a history rooted in British industry and as part of Tata Group since 2007, Tata Steel UK continues to focus on efficiency and operational excellence as it adapts to changing market pressures.
A partnership focused on commercial resilience
Tata Steel UK’s longstanding relationship with npower Business Solutions (nBS) began in 2011 and has steadily progressed from traditional energy supply into a strategic, insight-driven partnership. Over time, shared access to operational data and a joint approach to energy challenges have laid a strong foundation for resilience and adaptation.
Stacey Smith, Strategic Client Lead at nBS, comments:
We work closely with Tata Steel UK to understand the evolving challenges their business faces. This partnership is built on aligning our expertise with their priorities, so we can help them navigate complex energy markets with confidence.
Market volatility drives the need for new solutions
By 2025, Tata Steel UK was operating in an energy market where wholesale prices shifted rapidly – sometimes with little warning. Steel production demands high and constant energy consumption, which left the business especially exposed to sudden wholesale price spikes. These fluctuations made it challenging to manage budgets, maintain margin and deliver competitive pricing for customers in key sectors.
Existing efficiency programmes and procurement strategies continued to deliver value, helping to optimise energy consumption and reduce exposure to wholesale price volatility. However, these measures did not always provide the speed and flexibility needed to respond to rapidly changing operational and energy cost conditions. Site teams often lacked access to real-time pricing signals, consumption data and actionable insights at the point where production decisions could have the greatest financial impact.
Bijo Martin, Energy Category Manager at Tata Steel, explains:
Given the scale and energy intensity of our steelmaking operations, even short periods of elevated electricity prices could significantly increase production costs.
It became clear that we needed a new level of real-time visibility to bring together energy prices, site demand and operational data in a single view. This enabled teams to identify cost risks earlier, adjust energy-intensive activities where possible and make faster, data-driven decisions that reduced exposure to high-cost periods while maintaining production performance.
Adopting an advanced notification service for targeted decision-making
To address these challenges, Tata Steel UK adopted a bespoke trial product as part of its Flex Innovate contract – an advanced notification service developed by nBS specifically designed to help organisations manage the risk and impact of wholesale electricity price volatility.
The product continuously tracks prices in the short-term power market. When prices are forecast to exceed pre-agreed thresholds, or actually do so, it sends notifications directly to nominated teams at Tata Steel UK. These alerts provide advance warning of our forecasted extreme market volatility, enabling site and energy managers to make timely operational decisions – such as shifting non-essential, high-load activities or temporarily reducing demand at specific locations, allowing them to optimise against the market.
The product’s thresholds can be tailored to suit operational requirements – making notifications highly relevant and actionable – and the nBS team provides ongoing support to help energy managers interpret signals and optimise responses.
Steve Maynard, Energy Utilities Director at Tata Steel, explains: “The ability to receive timely alerts has made a practical difference. Our teams are now able to respond when it matters, not just after the event. This has increased our confidence in protecting the business from volatile N2EX prices.”
Delivering measurable value and preparing for the future
Since deploying the product in February 2026, Tata Steel UK has effectively mitigated exposure to the highest-cost market periods, recovering its investment in a matter of months and continuing to capture significant ongoing value. While these results demonstrate solid progress towards the company’s annual cost reduction target, they also highlight the long-term value of timely data and technical partnership.
Stacey adds: “Working with Tata Steel UK to embed market information into daily operations has strengthened their ability to manage risk and control costs. It is also enabling a more structured approach to continuous improvement.”
Steve concludes: “Having solutions in place that allow us to act at the right time makes a direct difference to our cost base and increases our operational flexibility. This progress gives us a stronger footing for the future.”
Learn more
For more information on our wider range of data-driven energy management solutions, please get in touch or speak to your nBS Account Manager (existing customers).
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npower Business Solutions does not provide energy for homes. We do not hold any accounts, information or services for home energy. If you are a customer who was previously with npower for your energy at home, you have been moved to E.ON Next, who offer specialist services, designed to support you. Please visit the E.ON Next site for support, and all the information you need about home energy, from your existing account to new quotes.
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