A pattern that is worth recognizing on sight, because it points at a document you would not otherwise ask for.
I was looking at third-party supply across a two-year period. The rate held inside a band of about six tenths of a cent through two summers and two winters, then walked upward in five small discrete steps over roughly twelve months. Nothing dramatic in any single step.
That shape is diagnostic. A fixed-price contract does not move at all. An index pass-through moves with the wholesale market, which over that period moved far more than six tenths of a cent and moved in both directions. A rate that is nearly flat and then ratchets gently upward in small increments is what a term looks like after it has expired into a holdover.
You cannot prove this from statements. The utility prints the supplier's rate; it does not print the contract behind it. So the finding is a request, not a conclusion: get the supply agreement, the term, the end date, the renewal mechanism, and specifically any evergreen or holdover clause. Get the broker agreement too, and find out how that party is compensated.
For scale, a one cent per kilowatt-hour premium on a million kilowatt-hours is ten thousand dollars over the period before tax. On accounts where supply is forty percent of spend, this is usually the largest single item in the file.
I was looking at third-party supply across a two-year period. The rate held inside a band of about six tenths of a cent through two summers and two winters, then walked upward in five small discrete steps over roughly twelve months. Nothing dramatic in any single step.
That shape is diagnostic. A fixed-price contract does not move at all. An index pass-through moves with the wholesale market, which over that period moved far more than six tenths of a cent and moved in both directions. A rate that is nearly flat and then ratchets gently upward in small increments is what a term looks like after it has expired into a holdover.
You cannot prove this from statements. The utility prints the supplier's rate; it does not print the contract behind it. So the finding is a request, not a conclusion: get the supply agreement, the term, the end date, the renewal mechanism, and specifically any evergreen or holdover clause. Get the broker agreement too, and find out how that party is compensated.
For scale, a one cent per kilowatt-hour premium on a million kilowatt-hours is ten thousand dollars over the period before tax. On accounts where supply is forty percent of spend, this is usually the largest single item in the file.