If your energy contract ends in 2027, the decisions you make in the next few months will shape your costs for years. Yet most organisations approach renewal the same way: wait for the broker's call, look at three quotes, pick the middle one.
There is a better way to think about it, and it starts with understanding what you are actually choosing between. Not suppliers. Strategies.
What a fixed-price contract really buys you
A fixed contract locks your unit rates for the full term, typically one to three years. The appeal is obvious: the number in your budget is the number on your invoice. For organisations where energy is a meaningful but not dominant cost line, and where the finance team values predictability over optimisation, fixed remains the right default.
But fixed has a cost that rarely appears in the quote. You are paying the supplier to carry market risk for you, and suppliers do not carry risk for free. That premium is baked into the rate, and it grows with market volatility. Fix at the wrong moment and you can lock in the top of the market for three years.
The question that matters
Not "what is the cheapest rate today" but "what does it cost my organisation if energy spend is 20% over budget next year". If the answer is serious pain, certainty has genuine value and fixed is doing real work for you.
What flexible procurement actually involves
Flexible, or risk-managed, procurement splits your volume into tranches purchased ahead of delivery on the wholesale market. Instead of betting everything on one signing day, you build a position across many buying decisions and are billed at the volume-weighted average price of those purchases, the WAP, guided by a strategy that sets when to buy, how much, and at what trigger points.
Done well, it removes the single worst outcome in energy buying: fixing your entire load at a market peak. Done badly, or without a written risk strategy, it becomes speculation with your operating budget. The discipline is the product.
The right strategy is not the one with the lowest headline rate. It is the one your board can defend in twelve months, whatever the market has done.
The three questions that decide it
1. How material is energy to your cost base?
Below roughly £100k a year of spend, the overhead of flexible buying rarely pays its way and a well-timed, well-benchmarked fixed contract is usually the answer. Into the hundreds of thousands and beyond, especially across multiple sites, tranche buying starts to earn its keep.
2. What is your genuine tolerance for variance?
Not your appetite for savings. Your tolerance for the bad year. If a 15% overshoot triggers difficult conversations, weight towards certainty. If your organisation can absorb variance in pursuit of a better average, flexibility deserves a look.
3. Who is accountable for the decision?
Flexible strategies need someone watching the market and executing the plan. That is either an internal resource or an adviser with a documented mandate. If neither exists, a flexible contract is a promise nobody is keeping.
Where does your current contract sit?
We benchmark your position against the market and show the working, with every fee disclosed at quote stage. No obligation.
Request a benchmarkThe hybrid most people miss
This is not a binary choice. Larger organisations increasingly fix a base load for certainty and run the balance flexibly, capturing market opportunity on the margin while protecting the core budget. The right split depends on your consumption shape, and it is exactly the kind of decision an independent adviser should model for you rather than sell to you.
Timing beats everything
Whichever route you choose, the single biggest driver of outcome is when you engage. Organisations that start twelve months before contract end can be selective about their moment. Organisations that start six weeks out take whatever the market is offering. If your renewal lands in 2027, the window to be selective is open now.
The market will do what it does. Your strategy is the part you control.