Real Savings. Real Results.

How to read a commercial energy case study

Savings percentages in this industry are quoted against whatever makes them largest, so the first question about any of them is "compared to what". The numbers on this page are measured against what each client was actually paying before, not against a utility default rate they were never going to accept. That is the harder comparison and the only one that tells a prospective client anything about their own situation.

The second question is where the saving came from, because the lever determines whether it is repeatable for you. Across these accounts the recurring sources are the same five:

• Competitive supply against a default or holdover rate. The largest single category, and the one that flatters the percentage most, because the starting point was a rate nobody negotiated. This is commercial electricity procurement and commercial natural gas procurement doing ordinary work.
• Rate class corrections. Facilities billed under a tariff class that stopped matching their operations years ago. No contract, no supplier, no capital — utility tariff optimization alone. It is the least visible line in most case studies and frequently the highest return on effort.
• Recovered billing errors. Meter multipliers, demand ratchets set by an anomalous interval, riders billed to facilities that no longer qualify, unclaimed tax exemptions, and meters still billing for closed sites. This is bill auditing, and it recovers money already spent rather than only reducing future cost.
• Demand and capacity charge reduction. Load sequencing and coincident-peak avoidance, which for industrial and refrigerated sites usually outperforms anything procurement can deliver — peak load management and demand response programs.
• Portfolio consolidation. Multi-site operators moving from dozens of independently managed accounts to one negotiating position, one renewal calendar and one billing standard — energy contract renewal management and energy cost allocation as much as procurement.

Why the same percentage is not available to everyone

A client already on a competitively bid fixed contract signed at a reasonable moment has little supply saving available, and telling them so is the correct answer even though it is a worse commercial one. For those accounts the opportunity sits entirely on the other side of the bill — rate class, demand charges, billing errors — which a rate analysis identifies before anyone promises a number.

Market and industry both constrain the ceiling too. In municipal territories such as Austin and San Antonio there is no supplier to switch to at all, so supply savings are zero by construction and everything comes from tariff and demand work. In ERCOT, Pennsylvania and Ohio, where competition is deepest, the supply spread is wider. And a data center that cannot curtail has a structurally different ceiling from a cold storage facility that can — see the industries page for how load shape sets the range.

The only way to know which of these applies to your accounts is to look at your bills. The free assessment returns a written analysis within 24 hours, including the cases where the answer is that your current contract is fine.