Profile First. Tender Second. Know Your Real Energy Profile Before You Hedge

Are you sure you are not wasting €100 000 per year on your energy budget?
For companies with an annual energy spend of around €2 million, commodity and non-commodity combined, savings are often hiding in plain sight.

In practice, organisations achieve an average saving of 8% on the commodity part of their energy budget. Not through luck or market timing, but through structure.

Yet one lever is underestimated.

Clicks without a strategy feel active, but reduce control.

Most click decisions happen reactively.
Prices rise. Budgets come under pressure. A click is made.

It feels like active management.
In reality, there is no predefined decision framework.

Each click becomes a one-off decision.
Uncertainty increases. Budget control decreases.

Depending on market conditions and risk profile, power and gas click moments makes up to a 20% difference in the commodity price.

Volatility is not the enemy. Disorganization is.
Looking at historical forward prices, the same pattern repeats itself every year.
Within a single delivery year, electricity and gas prices often fluctuate by tens of percent.
This means the exact same volume can be fixed at very different prices within the same year.

- Companies that fix everything at once depend entirely on timing.
- Companies that spread decisions build their price step by step and end up closer to the market average.
- Organisations that take those decisions within a predefined framework consistently perform better than the average.

Not by predicting the market.
But by organising decisions.

A click strategy starts from your organisation.

A well-designed click strategy answers critical questions:
- How sensitive is your budget to price fluctuations?
- What level of risk is acceptable?
- Which volumes must be secured, and which can fluctuate?
- Over what time horizon are decisions spread?

These answers translate into a clear framework with predefined click moments, bandwidths and rules.
Without structure, volatility controls you.
With structure, volatility becomes a tool.

‘If you hedge volumes in your energy contract without understanding your true consumption profile, you are not reducing risk. You might be increasing it. ’ Freek Libbrecht , Head of Traditional

Hedging only works when it fits reality. Many organisations still hedge their full forecasted volumes without checking whether those volumes align with their actual load profile. That creates a hidden exposure. When hedged volumes exceed consumption, companies must sell excess energy back into the spot market exactly when prices collapse. In those moments, the hedge stops being protection and becomes a financial liability.

A proper profile analysis exposes this risk. It shows how your consumption shifts across hours, seasons, weekdays, and production states. It reveals how shutdowns or rampups distort your pattern, and how your load correlates with the spot market. Without this insight, you cannot know whether your current hedging behaviour reduces volatility or unintentionally magnifies it.

Once you understand your actual energy consumption profile, you must project it forward. Electrification, new equipment, flexible assets, and on-site generation will all reshape your future baseline. If you ignore these changes, you start a new contract with structurally wrong volumes from day one.

With a complete, future-proofed profile, you can choose the right mix of fixed and variable volumes. You can hedge at moments that reflect your risk appetite instead of market noise. And you can tender for products that align with how your operations truly behave, preparing your budget for the volatility that will define 2026 and the years after.

I will explain these principles in detail during the Energy Hedging 2.0 webinar on 16 December. If you want clarity, control, and real risk reduction in your next tender, this session is the place to start.