Case Studies

An eleven-site bakery and chilled-food group came to us fixed at the top of the market by a broker who then went quiet. There were no monthly reports, no budget the finance team could trust, and two new production lines the supplier had never been told about, quietly building up over-notification charges.

We moved the group onto a flexible contract, bought power in tranches through the year, and put monthly reporting by site in front of the finance director, with the new lines built into a forecast we revisited every month. When the curve fell back in the spring we locked the bulk of the next period at a far better level than the fixed deal they had been sitting on.

Two years on the finance team works from a single monthly pack that ties energy back to each site and each line, the over-notification leak is closed, and buying decisions are made against the forward curve rather than a renewal deadline. The saving is real money, but the bigger change is that nobody is guessing any more.

A cold store with electricity as its biggest cost after labour had simply rolled its contract over each year. There was no half-hourly analysis, the capacity charges had been overpaid for years, and a steady refrigeration load was doing nothing in the flexibility markets it was built for.

We pulled the half-hourly data and rebuilt the picture from the meter up, right-sized the agreed capacity to real peak demand, and moved the load onto flex. We then registered the refrigeration plant for demand response, where shifting compressor cycles by minutes earns payments without ever touching product temperature.

The site now runs on a contract that matches how it actually draws power, earns income from flexibility it was already capable of, and sees a monthly report that puts energy cost next to pallets stored and moved. What was a fixed annual cost has become something the operations team can actively manage.

An injection moulder had been fixed for three years on a deal that looked sharp once and dear ever since, with a renewal quote arriving once a year and nothing in between. No reporting meant waste went unseen and the budget was little more than a guess.

We moved them to flex and spread the buying across the year to catch the dips. Monthly reporting quickly flagged a machine left running out of hours and adding cost for no output, and we built a budget tied to production volumes that we reforecast every quarter.

With a high, steady base load the site is well suited to flexible buying, and it now behaves that way: purchases are layered in when the market gives an opening rather than fixed in one nervous decision, and the operations director can see exactly where consumption sits against output every month.

A continuous-kiln ceramics maker was exposed to both gas and power, with a stack of non-commodity charges no one had ever explained, all bundled into a single fixed price. When wholesale prices spiked, the renewal landed with no warning and no way to challenge it.

We split the bill into wholesale, network and policy cost so every line could be questioned, reshaped the gas position by buying through summer and selling expensive winter tranches, and layered power purchases across the year. Both fuels were reported and forecast together, every month.

Seeing the bill broken into its parts changed the conversation entirely: charges that had been accepted for years were challenged and corrected, and the seasonal gas strategy now smooths the winter exposure that used to dominate the budget. The board has a combined gas and power number it can actually stand behind.

A commercial laundry running washers, tunnel finishers and dryers around the clock was fixed on a single bundled price, with steam and hot water making gas almost as big a cost as power. The standing and capacity charges had not been looked at in years, and waste heat from the dryers was going straight up the flue.

We moved both fuels onto flex and bought in tranches, stripped out capacity the site no longer drew, and modelled a heat-recovery scheme on the dryers so the finance director could see its payback alongside the energy saving. Monthly reporting tied consumption to kilos of linen processed, giving a true cost per load for the first time.

The laundry now buys energy the way it runs the floor, against numbers it can see rather than a price set once a year. Recovering dryer heat to pre-warm wash water trimmed gas demand on top of the procurement saving, and cost per load has become a figure the team manages week to week.

A metal-pressing and finishing plant with heavy, spiky power demand had rolled its contract over for years on a broker's say-so. Peaks at shift changes were driving capacity and distribution charges nobody had ever challenged, and the budget was set by adding a guess to last year's bill.

We rebuilt the load profile from half-hourly data, right-sized the agreed capacity, and shifted some non-critical processes off the expensive red distribution bands. Flexible plant was registered for demand response, and power was then bought in tranches across the year with monthly reporting against output.

The plant now pays for the network it actually uses, earns from flexibility it always had, and buys when the market allows rather than when a contract expires. Tying energy cost to tonnes produced gave the management team the first budget they could genuinely plan capacity and pricing around.