Frequently Asked Questions.

We primarily help commercial businesses negotiate electricity and natural gas contracts in the ERCOT market — and we help them time those decisions. We've tracked wholesale power pricing since the early days of deregulation, which gives us a long-range view of where the market has been, where it is today, and how current pricing compares historically. That context is what separates a well-timed contract from one that just felt like a good deal at the time.

It starts with a conversation — no paperwork, no commitment. If it makes sense to move forward, we'll ask you to sign a simple Letter of Authorization (LOA), which is required under PUC rules and allows us to pull your historical usage data directly from your utility. That's what lets us do a proper analysis rather than just guessing at pricing. From there we evaluate your load profile and load factor, assess where current market pricing sits relative to historical ranges, and present you with our findings. You decide what to do from there.

How are you comparing bids that arrive? There are multiple variations of fixed pricing (much less anything more complex) and comparing bids from everyone that complied with such a request will make you quickly rethink the approach. If it were simply that easy, we wouldn’t exist in the market and would ultimately be doing you a disservice without, at a minimum, evaluating your historical usage prior to sending any executable pricing. We can however, provide ranges and pricing estimates based on what you tell us, but none of that can be used for decision-making purposes. Let’s discuss some options today.

How close did they get to the wholesale price for your last power supply contract? Electricity procurement in deregulated markets is unlike purchasing anything else an organization needs. The product cannot be stored, and pricing fluctuates based on a dizzying confluence of factors. The complexity of the ERCOT market alone is beyond the scope of expertise for many participants, let alone a procurement manager who looks at electricity supply agreements every couple of years. We aim to ensure that all our customers are paying exactly what they should be based on their load factor, not simply “the best choice” on a poorly designed RFP/RFQ.

This is the best question a customer can ask, especially when one considers the opacity of energy markets. We start looking at wholesale power pricing before anything and then evaluate your historical usage patterns across your meters. Pricing in general is based on a meter’s annualized load factor, which isn’t easily determined from a single bill copy. We can assign a range of “favorable pricing” retail adders based on the load factor/wholesale numbers/credit/etc. to easily determine which energy suppliers are serious about winning your business and which should be passed upon in this instance.

Additionally, we have recently incorporated a third-party pricing estimation tool that provides a neutral viewpoint based on the same factors we’re always used to evaluate incoming bids.

From initial conversation to executable pricing, the process usually takes one to two weeks depending on how quickly we can obtain your usage history and how many meters are involved. We don't rush it — getting the analysis right matters more than getting it done fast. Once pricing is in hand, how long you take to make a decision is entirely up to you. We'll tell you what the market looks like and let you decide when the time is right.

In general, we are compensated by splitting the sales commission with the inside sales group of whatever Retail Energy Provider (REP) you might choose and ONLY IF you decide to go with them. Our interests are therefore completely aligned with yours — we only get paid when you get a deal worth taking. In certain cases, we may arrange a fixed-fee style agreement or receive referral fees on various projects from other third parties we work with.

Of course, we encourage customers to contact us first if anything ever comes up, so that they can concentrate on their own business. Not everyone behaves like this, but you can have our assurance that we will never disappear after any agreement is executed, rather we are happy to provide as much (or little) support as needed throughout its duration. We are constantly watching the market for future opportunities to hedge and can alert you to those, so you can concentrate on other matters.

And while we never anticipate billing errors with any of the REPs we work with, occasionally situations arise that require additional expertise and we can almost always resolve anything far quicker than you might on your own. Simply never having to call the customer service department of a Retail Energy Provider is worth its weight in gold for our customers.

Of course, we can offer as much or little support as necessary. While we primarily specialize in electricity and natural gas procurement, we can also assist commercial customers with demand side management, utility bill auditing and other energy efficiency projects. That could include lighting retrofits, power factor correction, or equipment upgrade(s) if necessary. Over the years, we’ve encountered only a handful of customers who have exhausted all their options to optimize their energy management.

Texas is our primary market — we know the ERCOT market deeply and have tracked pricing data here since the earliest days of deregulation. That said, we can assist commercial customers in other deregulated states as well. If you're outside of Texas, reach out and we'll let you know quickly whether we can add value in your market.

Technically, the administrative floor for Real-Time Settlement Point Prices in ERCOT is -$251/MWh — meaning the market can actually pay consumers to use electricity during periods of oversupply. The bid/offer curve floor sits at -$250/MWh. But neither of those numbers represents anything a commercial customer can reliably contract around. What matters is where forward contract pricing sits relative to historical ranges — and whether today is actually a good time to lock in. A number that looks low on paper may be high relative to where the market has been, and vice versa. That's exactly the context we bring to every conversation.