Olive / Northamptonshire ACRE Bulk Oil Buying Scheme
Northamptonshire ACRE is an organisation set up to support rural communities in the county - more information on ACRE can be found here https://www.northantsacre.org.uk/northamptonshire-acre-story
Some background...
Northamptonshire ACRE have been running a bulk oil buying scheme since October 2011. This was set up with the key aim of helping residents in villages who are off gas to get the best possible price for their heating oil in order to save them money, especially those in fuel poverty. During the time it has been going Northamptonshire ACRE have helped members to save over £198,500 against the highest prices quoted and approximately £80,500 on the average, on over 1.7 million litres of oil.
Initially, this was a paper based system administered by staff at Northamptonshire ACRE and which had a membership fee to cover the admin costs; this system was heavy on admin and resources and didn't give much of a chance to grow the membership. Having a larger membership base would mean Northamptonshire ACRE could negotiate even better savings from the oil delivery companies. Northamptonshire ACRE had a look at a number of possible options but wanted one that would be easy to use, more efficient and that could be done online.
Northamptonshire ACRE are part of the ACRE Network of 39 members and one fellow member, Rural Action Derbyshire had been running the olive online system for quite a while and on their recommendation Northamptonshire ACRE decided to go with the same system. From the 1st August 2016 Northamptonshire ACRE began working with a company called eSmartMetrics to implement their online ordering system, olive.
To find out more about olive and the registration process, follow the following link to the Northamptonshire Acre website https://www.northantsacre.org.uk/olive-our-online-bulk-oil-buying-scheme
