Securing ahead of renewal

Suppliers will typically price a forward start up to around eighteen months ahead of a renewal date, and the tradeable forward curve reaches out roughly five years, so a longer fix can reach the back years rather than only the next one.

The eighteen month figure is a working guide rather than a guarantee. How far ahead a supplier will price varies by supplier, by fuel and by the size and load profile of the site. Larger half-hourly sites typically get the longest reach.

Gas and power can both be secured ahead but behave differently, so we quote and decide them separately.

The price is agreed now and begins when the current contract ends. No early exit is needed.

• Certainty on your timetable. The benefit is a known price, not necessarily a lower one. You remove the risk of a renewal landing on a bad week.
• A fix ahead of the April reset. The regulated part of the bill resets every April. Fixing the elements a supplier is willing to fix, ahead of that reset, removes one moving part.
• No renewal cliff. Leaving it late is how businesses fall onto deemed or out of contract rates, or sign in a hurry.
• The option to stage entry. A longer or staged position lets you fix in tranches rather than committing everything on one day.

Securing ahead is not free optionality. You are committing to a price before you have to, and if the market falls between now and your start date you will have fixed above where you could have.

That is the trade being made. It is a decision about certainty against optionality, not a bet on direction, and anyone presenting it as a guaranteed saving is presenting it wrongly.

We do not forecast the market. Not up, not down. What we do is set out what the curve is doing at the point of the decision, what shape it is in, and what we would weigh.

A curve can be in contango, where further-dated periods cost more, or backwardated, where they cost less. The shape determines whether a longer fix locks a premium or a discount, and it changes. It must be checked at the point of decision rather than assumed, which is why no curve position appears on this page. Ask us and we will tell you where it sits today.

Whether a supplier fixes network charges is a separate question from the commodity price, and it is asked per supplier, per fuel and per product.

We do not describe a supplier as fixing network charges without written confirmation on file. Where we do not hold it, the charge is quoted as pass-through and the position is stated as unknown rather than assumed.