Press & media: expert comment
Chris Hurcombe
Managing Director, Catalyst Commercial Services. Business energy procurement, wholesale market risk and half-hourly consumption analysis for UK commercial and industrial users.
Response to media enquiries within 24 hours
What Chris can speak on
Specific beats general. Each of these is a working area of the business, not a claimed interest, so the commentary comes with client evidence behind it.
Wholesale gas and power prices
What is actually moving NBP and UK baseload, and what it means for a business renewing this quarter.
Procurement and tendering
Fixed versus flexible, basket and framework buying, and where the risk really sits in a supply contract.
Non-commodity costs
DUoS, TNUoS, BSUoS, CCL, RO, CfD and Capacity Market, the half of the bill nobody quotes on.
Billing errors and invoice validation
Back-billing, misread meters, wrong capacity charges, and what a business can realistically recover.
Half-hourly data and load profiles
Maximum demand, available capacity (kVA), power factor, and the waste that only shows up in HH data.
Carbon and compliance reporting
SECR, ESOS Phase 4 and net zero claims, what is mandatory and what is marketing.
Business water retail
Change of tenancy, retailer switching, and disputed consumption on the open water market.
Grid connections and capacity
HV connection queues, capacity charges, and the constraint story behind data centre demand.
Flexibility and storage
Time-of-use arbitrage, demand-side response, and where battery cases stack up against the spread.
Figures you can cite
Every number below is dated and sourced. Wholesale figures are settlement prices, not indications, and are refreshed from our own daily market reporting.
| Measure | Latest | Basis and source |
|---|---|---|
| NBP gas, day-ahead | 135.25 p/therm | Settled 4 Aug 2026, Catalyst daily market report |
| NBP gas, Winter-26 | 137.10 p/therm | Settled 4 Aug 2026, Catalyst daily market report |
| UK power, day-ahead baseload | 88.84 £/MWh | Settled 4 Aug 2026, Catalyst daily market report |
| UK power, Winter-26 baseload | 117.31 £/MWh | Settled 4 Aug 2026, Catalyst daily market report |
| Climate Change Levy, electricity and gas | 0.801 p/kWh | HMRC main rate, 1 Apr 2026 to 31 Mar 2027 |
Approved biography
Three lengths, because the outlet decides, not us. Pre-approved copy means a sub-editor never has to invent a description of the business.
25 words: standing byline
Chris Hurcombe is Managing Director of Catalyst Commercial Services, an energy consultancy advising UK businesses on electricity and gas procurement, market risk and consumption analysis.
50 words: quote attribution
Chris Hurcombe is Managing Director of Catalyst Commercial Services, which advises commercial and industrial energy users on electricity, gas and water procurement. The consultancy runs competitive tenders, analyses half-hourly consumption data and publishes daily wholesale market reporting used by finance and operations teams across the UK.
100 words: feature contributor
Chris Hurcombe is Managing Director of Catalyst Commercial Services, an independent energy consultancy working with commercial and industrial users across the UK. Catalyst runs competitive procurement for electricity, gas and water, builds hedging strategies for multi-site portfolios, and analyses half-hourly meter data to find capacity, power-factor and load-profile savings that never appear on an invoice. The business also advises on carbon compliance, including SECR and ESOS, and publishes daily and weekly wholesale market commentary. Chris speaks on energy price risk, the rising share of non-commodity costs, and what grid constraint means for businesses trying to expand.
Where Catalyst sits in the market
Catalyst is an independent consultancy and broker. We buy energy on behalf of business customers, validate their invoices and analyse their meter data.
We are not a supplier, a generator, an installer or a hardware vendor, and we have no product to sell into the stories we comment on. If an enquiry needs a supplier, an EPC contractor or an in-house energy manager, we will say so rather than stretch to fit, and we are happy to give technical background off the record instead.
