Kathleen Peters, our expert consultant and Product Owner for energy transition at E&C, explains under which circumstances a PPA should be closed.

The energy market has gone through unprecedented volatility in the past few years. What are the lessons learned from that extreme volatility? As an industrial company that needs to procure large volumes, how do you navigate such volatility?

Can energy policies impact the markets? And what role does the implementation of PPAs play against volatility?

Would combining a mix of different PPAs with different technologies spread over time protect against future volatility? Or would the higher injection of renewables into the power grid bring short-term volatility?

In this video, Jens Lievens and Merlijn Mertens, CEO and Energy Trader respectively at E&C Consultants, talk about all these questions and much more. Want to hear the conclusions? Click play!

What makes E&C Consultants the go-to choice for larg-escale energy-consuming business?

Our Key Account Manager, Stéphanie Vanhee explains how our growth and team structure enhance our clients' experience, together with the unique support of our data management platfor, ePoint.

Subsidies, country resolutions, energy transition, … How do they impact your energy bills, strategy and competitive position?

Bart Verest, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs Lead Partner, and Emma Nocquet-Wass, Energy Procurement and Sustainability Consultant at E&C Consultants share their expertise.

In the current energy landscape, the challenges for enery buyers are huge: the road of no return to green energy consumption makes risk management more important than never.

We already see how the natural intermittency of solar and wind and thus the unpredictability of these sources establishes a diversified market with different qualities of energy. And it is precisely the way consumers manage the complexity of energy data that will determine the success of procurement strategies.

In this video, our CEO Benedict De Meulemeester and our Energy Trader Merlijn Mertens talk about these questions.

Want to hear the conclusions? Click play!

Some companies enthusiastically signed 100 EUR per MWh and more PPAs when the markets were up in the crazy levels and got applause for savings made versus forecasted future prices. Will the applause continue now that markets and forecasts have dropped back to double digit levels? Will you still be an energy procurement hero if the PPA you recommended to sign goes out of the money for an extended period of time? 

A well-designed PPA can play a crucial role in stabilizing energy cost, which for many clients is the main goal of their energy risk management program. But have your really reflected well on the cost your organization is willing to pay for that stability?

And as of 30% of your volume covered by PPAs, there’s the risk of ill design, where instead of decreasing your exposure to market volatility you increase it as you have large volumes of energy to be bought / sold in and to spot markets at moments when production and consumption don’t match. Cross-border PPAs help you manage this as you bring together larger volumes spread over a larger geographical area. But they create spread risk which can be complex to manage.

Understand this complexity by the hand of Derek Hyland, Global Director Energy Procurement & Risk Management at Ball Corporation, and Merlijn Mertens, Energy Trader at E&C Consultants. Both presented the session on "Risk Management approach to energy buying within the energy transition" on the occasion of our Global Energy Conference 2024 organized in Vienna.

PPAs have become the preferred instrument for decarbonizing a company’s power supply. We call them “onion contracts”, they look very simple on the outside, but the deeper you start looking into them, the more layers of complexity you’ll discover.

Selling wind or solar power for a long duration at a fix price is undoubtedly a great solution for the investors and owners of such production assets. But as a buyer, what can you do to make them a powerful instrument that services your risk management needs as well as your decarbonization goals? Is a fix price, hourly-cashed out PPA really the contract of the future? And what will happen to energy suppliers if large consumers buy most of their energy directly from producers? What services do you need to manage a diversified portfolio and who can deliver them and at what conditions?

Listen to Gerard Reid, co-Founder and Partner at Alexa Capital, and Andor Savelkouls, Energy Procurement and Transition Consultant at E&C Consultants, answering these questions during the session "Energy markets evolve – energy contracts should too", shared with the audience of our Global Energy Conference 2024 in Vienna. 

Corporate energy transitions entail a complete makeover of your sites’ energy supply situation. From having one electricity and one gas contract for all sites in one country, companies will switch to a much more complex portfolio of different on-site and off-site PPAs, residual supply contracts, contracts for feeding energy into the grid instead of withdrawing from it, battery stations and even arrangements with your employees connecting their EV’s to the bi-directional charging stations in your parking lots or contracts with providers of services to capitalize the demand flexibilities you have in your processes.

Unless you want to pay the price for the comfort of outsourcing all of this to one service provider, you will have to step up your game in energy procurement.

Are you ready to manage and negotiate that larger portfolio of contracts? Not having MWh’s produced when you consume them, will create new complexities for your risk management. And a multitude of invoices will come in, how do you stitch them together to answer a plant manager’s request for information on their energy costs?

Benedict De Meulemeester and Jens Lievens, CEOs at E&C Consultants, shed light on these questions during the introductory session opening the Global Energy Conference 2024 hold in Vienna in June 2024.

Juan Ríos, E&C International Energy Procurement Consultant specialized in the APAC region, explains the particularities of this market by answering key questions helping to understand how energy procurement works in Asia Pacific:

• How are the markets in Asia Pacific different to those in Europe and the US?

• What are some of the key factors impacting energy costs in Asia Pacific?

• What are some of the energy procurement options available in Asia Pacific?

Bart Verest, E&C International Energy Procurement Consultant, analyses the latest government interventions in energy markets as a result of the crisis:

• Is the energy crisis over?

• Does this mean that the prices caps will disappear?

• What would you say are the main differences in energy procurement between Europe are other regions, like Latin America and Asia Pacific?

Alexander Vande Walle, E&C International Energy Procurement Consultant, explains the key aspects of energy procurement in North America by answering strategic questions:

• What are some of the key differences between the European markets and the North American markets?

• What are some of the main greening options available for North American markets?

• How do you manage contract tendering within the US when part of the market is regulated and part is deregulated?

Zhanna Tarasko, E&C IT & Data Reporting Team Leader, explains which are the best practices in energy data collection by answering key questions like:

• What are some of the best practices in collecting expected volumes?

• How do you create an actionable report?

• How do you use data to bring the business story across?

• How do you identify the main drivers of energy cost variation in your invoices?

Jens Lievens is COO at E&C Consultants and an expert on energy procurement with a large experience on business development.

During GEC 2023, Jens reviewed the most common risk management strategies among energy buyers during the period of exacerbated volatility experienced over the past two years.

Dina Karamarko is International Energy & Sustainability Consultant at E&C. She is passionate about creating value for industrial players when it comes to energy risk management, decarbonization, and effective reporting. One of her personal goals is to start promoting more women in the energy world.

During GEC 2023, Dina introduced the key elements to be considered by large energy buyers to turn their decarbonization roadmap into an actionable roadmap.

Gabriel Umaña is Customer Success Manager at LevelTen Energy. He helps the network of buyers and advisors throughout the journey to execute PPAs in Europe. Gabriel holds an Environmental Engineering minor in Anthropology from The University of The Andes, Colombia, and an MBA from the European School of Management and Technology of Berlin, Germany.

When it comes to PPA, are there any differences between contracts in North America and Europe? Click on play to discover them.

Director of Sustainability for China at The Lantau Group, Jenny Zhang has 24-years of experience with leading energy companies, She has a strong understanding of energy and basic polymer value chains, the general commercial realm of energy, client procurement and relationship building, and analytics.

During GEC 2023, Jenny offered attendees a detailed overview of the particularities of the Chinese China single power market and green PPA.

Jens Bergmann is working for the last 6 years at Knauf as Global Category Manager Energy, covering with his team more than 300 sites in more than 60 countries with a spend of 1bn Euros. Previously he worked for 10 years at E.ON / Uniper in their trading houses as a portfolio manager for European industrial customers.

Dmitriy Pigildin is a versatile energy market analysis and risk professional with over 8 year experience in the industry. Solid background in client management, project management and leadership. Committed to the field of risk management and market analysis by continuous learning and acquiring field-related qualifications.

During GEC 2023, Jens and Dmitriy presented Knauf's journey from its beginnings in 1932 to nowadays where Knauf is seen as a global benchmark in its industry. How has the company become what it is? What have been the processes and decisions with regard to its energy procurement strategy that have contributed to its current business success?

Attendees in the Transatlantic Energy Conference 2022, organized by the end of April, had the chance to listen to our CEO Benedict de Meulemeester, and our Energy Trader, Merlijn Mertens, explain the ins and outs of the recent unprecedented volatility experienced by the energy markets.

Benedict is one of the founders of E&C Consultants. He collaborated with many companies in energy procurement in the past sixteen years at E&C, and has a broad experience regarding the energy markets in many different countries.

Doctor in Nuclear Fusion Science and Engineering, Merlijn decided to combine his fundamental and technical background with his deep-rooted but never before exploited interest in economy, joining E&C Consultants in 2021 as Energy Trader.

E&C Consultants was honoured to count with the presentation from Massimo Bevar, who introduced the pannel on "Winning energy buying strategies" together with Jens Lievens, COO at E&C Consultants, on the occasion of our Transatlantic Energy Conference 2022 organized by the end of April.

Massimo started to work in Magneti Marelli in 2006. Global Commodity Manager since 2015, he has contributed increasing the awareness of Marelli Company on energy markets: after an initial approach with a single country, today the number of countries centrally managed are around ten and the journey continues. 

E&C Consultants was honoured to count with the presentation from Eline Lenselink, Global Category Manager Real Estate, Facilities, Waste & Energy at AkzoNobel, who introduced the pannel on "Keeping control over the cost of your energy transition" together with Dina Karamarko, International Energy & Sustainability Consultant at E&C Consultants, on the occasion of our Transatlantic Energy Conference 2022 organized by the end of April.

The expertise Eline Lenselink is bringing is more than 25 years with AkzoNobel in several positions: from Facilities to Human Resources to Procurement. Today she is driving global energy purchasing, with specific focus on sustainability.

Since her very early days at E&C, in 2015, Dina Karamarko has been passionate about creating value for industrial players when it comes to energy risk management, decarbonization, and effective reporting. One of her personal goals is to start promoting more women in the energy world.

E&C Consultants was honoured to count with the key note speech from Gerard Reid, who opened its Transatlantic Energy Conference 2022 organized by the end of April.

Gerard Reid is focused on empowering and accelerating change by advising organisations, industry leaders and global decision makers on the transition towards net-zero carbon emissions. Co-founder at Alexa Capital, he is also a Fellow at the Institute of the Environment at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Global Future Council on Advanced Energy Technologies at the World Economic Forum.

Jens Lievens is COO at E&C Consultants and has a strong background in business development, experience that he applies constantly as manager to inspire and support colleagues and clients.

Attendees at the Transatlantic Energy Conference had the opportunity to listen to Jens explaining the key elements of winning energy buying strategies and how to deal with high prices in the current context of the energy markets. In this video, Jens discusses some of the insights shared with the conference audience and illustrates why it is so important to have a solid energy procurement strategy.

Gerard Reid is focused on empowering and accelerating change by advising organizations, industry leaders and global decision makers on the transition towards net-zero carbon emissions. Co-founder at Alexa Capital, he is also a Fellow at the Institute of the Environment at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Global Future Council on Advanced Energy Technologies at the World Economic Forum.

Gerard was the keynote speaker in our last Transatlantic Energy Conference, organized in Brussels on 28 April 2022 under the main theme 'Energy transition through the high peaks'. E&C Consultants profited from the occasion to ask Gerard about the current volatility of the energy markets and its impact for large energy consumers.

Dina Karamarko works as an International Energy & Sustainability Consultant at E&C Consultants. Since her very early days at E&C in 2015, Dina has been passionate about creating value for industrial players when it comes to energy risk management, decarbonization and effective reporting.

During our last annual conference, participants had the chance to hear Dina explain and showcase the strategies to keep control over the costs of decarbonization. We benefited from the situation to ask her about the link between general procurement strategies and sustainability strategies, as well as the risks that the current crisis could involve for the energy transition plans of large energy consumers.

Benedict de Meulemeester is co-founder and CEO at E&C Consultants. He collaborated with many companies in energy procurement in the past sixteen years at E&C, and has a broad experience regarding the energy markets in many different countries.

During the last E&C annual conference, Benedict spoke about the unprecedented volatility experienced by the energy markets, and led a workshop aiming at advising energy buyers on how deal with the risk of suppliers disappearing with hedges. 

The larger number of contracts of a diversified energy portfolio will result in a larger number of physical and financial flows of energy, billed in a larger number of invoices. With the added complexity of having many of those cashed out on an hourly basis, keeping track of how much you consume and pay will become a daunting task.

Answering questions like: “how are we contracted?”, “how are we hedged?”, “how much do we pay?”, “how green are we?”, will necessitate a correct reconciliation of a large multitude of parameters. Failure to do so will lead to missing contractual deadlines or opportunities, unexpected cost increases and deviations from budget, frustration inside your organization about mistakes in reports, wrong decision-making in hedging and energy investments, accusations of greenwashing, etc.

Stay ahead of this with insights into the kind of energy data management you will have to roll out to keep control over your diversified energy portfolio with the expertise from Reinout Goudeseune, Global Category Manager Utilities at Bekaert, and Bruno Alejandro Luis, DevOps at E&C Consultants. Together they presented the session on "Energy data management for better decision-making" hold during the Global Energy Conference 2024 in Vienna.