Procurement & contracts

• Check your contract end date immediately. If your energy contract expires before April 2027, you need to act now. Rolling onto a supplier’s out-of-contract rate in the current market could cost significantly more than a negotiated deal. Prices are high — but being on a deemed rate is almost always worse.
• Don’t wait for prices to fall before fixing. The forward curve remains elevated and backwardated, meaning near-term prices are at a premium to future contracts. Waiting for a significant price drop before acting is a high-risk strategy in the current environment. Speak to an energy consultant about your options.
• Consider a flexible procurement strategy. Rather than locking everything in at once, a multi-purchase approach allows you to fix portions of your consumption in tranches, reducing the risk of buying everything at a peak. This strategy requires active market monitoring — the kind of support an experienced energy consultant provides.
• Review contracts across all your sites. If you operate multiple sites, ensure you have full visibility of when each contract expires. Staggered renewals leave you exposed at different points and reduce your negotiating leverage. Aligning renewals where possible strengthens your position with suppliers.

Budget & forecasting

• Revise your energy budget for winter. If your energy budget was set earlier in the year, it almost certainly needs revisiting. Wholesale prices have risen sharply since the summer, and businesses that haven’t updated their forecasts may find themselves significantly short.
• Model a range of price scenarios. With geopolitical uncertainty still elevated and European storage at historically low levels, price volatility is likely to continue through the winter. Build high, medium and low price scenarios into your planning to understand your exposure.
• Account for non-commodity costs. Your energy bill is made up of more than just the commodity rate. Network charges, balancing charges, the Climate Change Levy and other levies can account for a significant proportion of your total cost — and they’re not always fixed. Make sure your budget reflects the full picture.

Bill management & supplier relationships

• Validate your energy invoices. Billing errors are more common than most businesses realise — incorrect unit rates, misread meters, wrong standing charges and misapplied levies all occur regularly. Check your invoices against your contracted terms and chase any discrepancies promptly.
• Ensure your meter readings are up to date. Estimated bills can cause significant problems at reconciliation, particularly in periods of high prices. Make sure your supplier has actual reads for all your meters and that half-hourly data is being collected correctly.
• Know who to contact when problems arise. With energy markets under pressure, supplier customer service queues lengthen. Ensure you have the right contacts at your supplier and consider whether having an energy consultant manage the relationship on your behalf would save you time and resolve issues faster.

Demand reduction & efficiency

• Audit your heating systems before winter. Boilers, heat pumps and HVAC systems that haven’t been serviced will run less efficiently and cost more to operate. Schedule maintenance now, before engineer availability tightens in October and November.
• Review your heating schedules and setpoints. Are your buildings being heated when they don’t need to be? Out-of-hours heating, over-heated storage areas and poorly configured building management systems are common sources of avoidable waste. A simple audit can identify quick savings.
• Shift energy-intensive processes where possible. If your operation allows for any flexibility, running energy-intensive processes during overnight or off-peak periods reduces your exposure to peak demand charges and can lower your commodity costs on flexible contracts.
• Check for compressed air leaks and insulation issues. These are perennial sources of energy waste in manufacturing and industrial settings. With energy prices at current levels, the financial case for fixing them has rarely been stronger.
• Ensure LED lighting is in place throughout your premises. If you still have fluorescent or halogen lighting anywhere in your business, switching to LED before winter will reduce your lighting costs immediately and improve conditions for staff during shorter daylight hours.