The 100-day plan is sacred in PE. It sets the tone for the hold, establishes the operating rhythm with management, and captures the low-hanging fruit that justified the deal thesis. Energy almost never makes the list — which is a shame, because it's one of the few workstreams where you can move real EBITDA within 100 days with essentially no operational risk.

Here's the template we run with operating partners and portco CFOs. Copy it, adapt it to your portco's specifics, and put it on the 100-day dashboard.

Days 1-30: Inventory and Baseline

The first month is about building the data foundation. You can't optimize what you can't see, and at most portcos, nobody's looked at energy holistically in years — sometimes ever.

Week 1-2: Pull the data.

• 24 months of utility bills across every meter (electricity, gas, water if applicable)
• Every active supply contract (electricity and natural gas)
• Any behind-the-meter generation agreements (solar, cogen, fuel cells)
• Demand response program enrollments and historical payments
• Utility account information — tax ID, rate schedule, meter configurations

Week 3-4: Build the baseline.

• Total annual energy spend by commodity and by site
• Blended rate per kWh / therm by site, 12-month trailing
• Contract expiration schedule (which contracts expire when)
• Market benchmark: how does each site's current rate compare to current market rates in that zone?
• Peak demand patterns by site

The deliverable at the end of day 30 is a one-page baseline with three numbers: total annual spend, estimated savings opportunity (as a dollar figure), and a ranked list of sites by opportunity. That page goes to the CFO and the operating partner. Don't overthink this — the point is to make the opportunity visible.

Days 31-60: Audit and Quick Wins

Month two is where the first checks hit the bank. This is the bill-auditing and tariff-optimization work, which produces recovery dollars and ongoing savings without touching any supply contracts.

Bill audit findings to chase:

• Rate schedule optimization. Is the portco on the correct tariff? Industrial sites especially are often misclassified. Reclassification is free and saves 5-15%.
• Sales tax exemptions. For manufacturing portcos, confirm the production-use exemption is being claimed. File for back refunds where applicable — typically recoverable 3-4 years.
• Demand ratchet errors. Check the capacity tag / demand ratchet against actual usage patterns. Correct any anomalies with the utility. Often a material monthly reduction.
• Rider cleanup. Identify and remove terminated riders, incorrect surcharges, and unauthorized fees.
• Meter verification. Confirm meter multipliers, CT ratios, and actual-vs-estimated billing. Meter errors are surprisingly common.

Quick-win enrollments:

• Demand response programs. If the portco has curtailable load and isn't enrolled, enroll them. ERCOT ERS, PJM Emergency Load Response, ISO-NE DR programs all have open enrollment windows multiple times per year. Revenue starts flowing within one program cycle.
• Curtailable-load tariff elections. Some utilities offer tariff discounts to customers willing to accept interruptible service. For the right site (manufacturing with generator backup, cold storage with thermal mass), this is easy recurring savings.
• Utility rebates. LED retrofits, motor upgrades, HVAC efficiency projects — if the portco has any capex on the near-term horizon, the utility rebate programs can fund a meaningful portion. Identify and queue up.

The deliverable at the end of day 60 is a list of completed and in-flight quick wins with realized and projected dollar impact. This should be a one-page scorecard. The CFO updates this monthly for the next year.

Days 61-100: The Strategic Procurement Action

Month three is when you execute on the big supply-side opportunity — the competitive procurement of electricity and natural gas across the portco. This is the workstream that typically delivers the largest EBITDA impact, but it requires more setup than the audit work.

Days 61-75: RFP preparation.

• Define the load characteristics per site (usage profile, reliability requirements, sustainability constraints).
• Decide on contract structure — fixed, index, block-and-index, heat-rate, or something custom — based on risk tolerance and market conditions.
• Align contract term with the expected hold period. A five-year contract in year one of a five-year hold is a different decision than a two-year contract with renewal flexibility.
• Build the bidder list. For meaningful portcos, you want 15-20 qualified suppliers bidding. Your broker or advisor should have the relationships. If they don't, reconsider your broker.
• Normalize the contract template. Remove the supplier-favorable landmines (asymmetric termination, unfavorable bandwidth, opaque pass-throughs) before the RFP goes out.

Days 76-90: Run the RFP.

• Issue the RFP with a defined bid window (typically 2-3 weeks).
• Host a bidders' conference if the portco is complex.
• Collect bids, normalize on identical contract terms, and produce a side-by-side evaluation.
• Negotiate with the top 3-5 bidders to sharpen final pricing.
• Award and execute contracts. Aim to close within the bid-validity window — supplier pricing is only good for a defined number of days, usually 3-10.

Days 91-100: Transition and handoff.

• Coordinate supplier transition with the utility (enrollment forms, switch dates, meter reads).
• Confirm demand response, REC, and tariff elections transfer or re-enroll cleanly.
• Set up ongoing monitoring — monthly bill review, market tracking, renewal pipeline.
• Close out the 100-day plan with a scorecard showing captured and projected savings.

What the 100-Day Scorecard Should Look Like

At day 100, the operating partner gets one page with the following:

• Savings captured: Dollar figure, realized
• Savings committed: Dollar figure, contracted but not yet realized (new supply contracts)
• Savings pipeline: Dollar figure, identified but not yet executed
• New revenue: Demand response payments, utility rebates received or committed
• Contract posture: Every active supply contract, expiration, current vs. market rate
• Open items: Workstreams still in flight, expected completion date

This becomes the basis for quarterly reporting for the remainder of the hold. Which brings up the last point.

The 100-Day Plan Is Just the Beginning

The plan above captures the one-time and first-cycle savings. But energy procurement is an ongoing discipline — markets move, contracts expire, usage patterns change, new programs open up. The portcos that sustain the EBITDA gains are the ones that keep the cadence going:

• Monthly bill review
• Quarterly market update and strategy review
• 12 months pre-expiration, begin the renewal process
• Annual benchmark against market
• Reporting cadence to the operating partner at the fund

Build the discipline during the 100 days. Maintain it for the remainder of the hold. Exit with a clean, well-benchmarked cost structure that the next buyer has no reason to discount.