Electrify your operations to reduce GHG emissions? Perhaps not that simple.

On Ontario's electricity grid, natural gas generating units are increasingly called on to provide power, even in off-peak hours. The trend has significant implications for those looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through electrification.

Generational change: Experienced senior staff are leaving

Many organizations face a growing challenge as senior employees leave the organization, taking with them significant knowledge and experience. Outsourcing expertise can be an effective way to fill the knowledge gap quickly, while lowering costs and reducing risks.

Energy transition: Success depends on interactions, dependencies, and contingencies

The value of an Energy Transition Plan is that it forces the organization to look at the many interacting parts, the dependencies and the contingencies that must be considered if success is to be achieved. It is unlikely the plan as first conceived will be implemented unchanged. But the process of planning equips the organization to anticipate possible challenges or obstacles that will arise, understand their impact and be confident in their ability to pivot to a new, more viable solution.

Choosing your energy transition pathway

An energy transition is underway. While this change is essential, it is fraught with challenges and uncertainties. The appropriate energy transition pathway is one that enables the organization to move confidently towards its goal, while remaining within its limits of operating cost impacts, capital availability and risk tolerance, and with key decisions staged to allow for mid-course corrections if necessary. To navigate the transition successfully, an organization must have strong alignment and embark on its transition pathway with its eyes open to the challenges and risks it faces.

Act now to reduce the impact of business disruption on energy costs and risks

The sudden shutdown of operations imposed on many organizations by COVID-19 is having profound impacts on organizations and the people within them.

With sudden and widespread change, it is hard to identify all the necessary actions and prioritize them. For many organizations, the change in operations will affect their need for energy.

RFPs are not a good tool for procuring expertise

Many organizations faced with the need to source energy sector expertise resort to that old procurement warhorse, the Request for Proposals, or “RFP”. Some public buyers consider themselves compelled to use an RFP when obtaining the professional services of a consultant or advisor.

Yet the RFP is a fundamentally flawed tool for procuring the expert advice needed to solve a complex problem.

Distributed energy resources: the next big thing in electricity is happening right outside your door

If you are a large commercial, institutional or industrial electricity user, the next big thing in electricity is happening right outside your front door. The deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) on local distribution systems redefines the role of your local utility, and brings new opportunities for large energy users to reduce costs and manage their energy supply.

Hedging, a tool for price risk reduction, not cost reduction

Energy buyers are tasked helping their organizations lower costs and manage cost uncertainty on the energy they need to operate. Energy price hedging is an important tool for accomplishing that goal. But to hedge effectively, we must clearly understand what hedging is for, and what it is not for. Only with the goals clearly in mind can we implement a strategy that will be successful.

In talking with energy buyers, it commonly emerges that many view energy buying as a speculative process. They see their job as requiring them to understand where the market is going next, so they can buy at the bottom and “lock in savings”. But the energy market is inherently uncertain, and no one can consistently predict market direction or the timing of market movements. Sounds like a stressful situation for these buyers!

The imperative to engage senior management in energy

Public sector organizations like school boards, municipalities and hospitals face a requirement to update their public Energy Conservation and Demand Management plans by July 1, 2019.

While energy has long been on the radar as a facility cost to manage, energy strategy is becoming an imperative at the senior management level as well. For example, an article in the Harvard Business Review makes the case for energy strategy to be a C-suite issue.