Case Studies

Priority:
Reduce Overhead Expenses for Multiple Nationwide Facilities

Scenario:
Preparing 387 million tailor-made meals per year in 47 countries throughout the world requires that tremendous detail be focused on quality assurance, logistical integrity, and operational efficiencies for this Legacy Energy client. Equally as important is being absolutely sure that each location continually monitors and strives to reduce operational costs. Legacy Energy actively manages the procurement of natural gas and electricity for each of this client’s 80+ North American facilities, ensuring that each facility is maximizing its investment in energy commodities. This active involvement includes: competitive 3rd-party natural gas and electricity RFP process management; constant monitoring of energy pricing and trends; and, timely implementation of hedging and index contracts. Legacy Energy further assists this client by maintaining year-to-date and year-over-year utility price comparison matrices, helping the client accurately forecast and monitor energy consumption on an ongoing basis.

Priority:
Accurately Forecast, Budget & Reduce Energy Costs

Scenario:
Meeting the demands of industries as price-competitive and diverse as automobile, furniture, and electronics requires this North American manufacturer to constantly monitor and anticipate its cost of production. The most significant portion of its productions costs can also be its most volatile – natural gas and electricity. Legacy Energy proactively manages the procurement of electricity and natural gas for each of this client’s 30+ North American facilities. Working closely with the client to adjust for ever-changing energy demands due to new production lines, the addition of new energy-efficient equipment, and the transfer of production lines from one facility to another, ensures that this manufacturer is always procuring natural gas and electricity in the most efficient manner possible based on real-time needs. Legacy Energy also provides ongoing bill reconciliation services, ensuring that billing calculations are strictly in accordance with existing tariffs and that accurate credits are being applied.

Priority:
Centralize and Outsource Corporate-wide Energy Procurement and Utility Bill Payment to Significantly Reduce All Energy-Related Direct and Overhead Costs

Scenario:
The continuing proliferation of non-traditional media is just one factor in the continual price-competitive equation faced by this industry-leading digital, print and broadcast client. Remaining competitive makes it imperative that this client manage its facility-related operational expenses as stringently as possible. This client operates facilities in 670+ facilities throughout North America, many of which previously utilized Legacy Energy’s services via a distributed energy management approach. Relying on the proven track record of Legacy Energy delivering significant energy cost reductions for select facilities has allowed this client to completely centralize and outsource all of its energy-related tasks, including bill payment, to Legacy Energy. This outsourcing has greatly reduced the corporate administrative burden and elevated Legacy Energy to serve as its corporate-wide energy advocate, whose responsibilities for each facility include: monitoring ongoing energy deregulation state-by-state where facilities are located, budgeting forward-year natural gas and electricity expenses, obtaining competitive pricing for natural gas and electricity, ongoing bill reconciliation, centralized bill payment services for all locations, providing ongoing real-time hedging and indexing of natural gas and electric requirements, and optimally leveraging the corporate strength of a multi-billion dollar enterprise for the purpose of energy cost reduction.

Priority:
Aggregate Energy Usage for Optimal Economy-of-Scale Pricing

Scenario:
This valued Legacy Energy client provides a great repudiation of the misnomer that a facility’s energy footprint is too small to benefit from expert energy management services. With over 200+ locations throughout the United States, this client is acutely focused on efficient logistics and minimizing company-wide facility expenses. While no single facility is an exceptionally large energy consumer, when energy-related usage and expenses for all facilities are aggregated and treated from the macro-expense perspective, the resulting savings provided by Legacy Energy’s proactive energy management services are substantial.

Priority:
Outsource All Energy-Related Functions

Scenario:
With plants throughout the southeast United States, this Legacy Energy client must navigate energy service from a number of diverse natural gas and electricity providers. Rather than hiring and dedicating staff to the task of managing energy procurement, this client employs Legacy Energy to serve as its energy advocate for all of its plants. This representation requires that Legacy Energy continually: review incumbent and competing utility company tariff rates to ensure the client is always placed in, and served by, the most cost effective rates available; monitor weather, energy commodity markets and utility regulatory filings to anticipate the direction of future energy prices; and, manage competitive RFP processing of future energy procurement contracts. Additionally, in its role as in-house energy counsel, Legacy Energy initiated and implemented real-time natural gas metering capabilities for one of this client’s plants. This new capability allows the manufacturer to fully allocate the energy portion of production costs to specific production runs, enabling accurate daily pricing versus monthly reconciliation.

Priority:
Risk-Tolerant Residential Budget Minimization

Scenario:
Because energy is such a significant operating expense for the heating, cooling and operation of its units, and to minimize unit owner expenses, the condominium association of this high-rise complex is focused on identifying and obtaining the absolute minimum price for natural gas and electricity. Relying on Legacy Energy’s skilled market analysis, this client pursues an energy procurement strategy based on active hedging and indexing of energy commodity markets. While this strategy can involve wide short-term swings in prices, the overall long-term effect is an annual energy procurement budget that is consistently less than comparative charges that would be paid if served by the local utility company.

Priority:
Risk-Adverse Residential Budget Certainty

Scenario:
With the constant uncertainty of weather, apartment owners and managers must continually factor cash flow fluctuations into their budget due to weather-impacted energy expenses. As an owner can’t charge extra rent when residents keep their thermostat adjusted higher during a cold spell, this Legacy Client is insistent that their natural gas and electric expenditures remain as predictable as possible. By annually analyzing this client’s most recent 10 years of energy consumption, Legacy Energy is able to help this client safely predict and budget the range of energy to be consumed in a given year. Budget certainty is further aided by competitively bidding this client’s energy service at the most opportune time well in advance of the next year’s contract period. The successful bidder is the energy supplier that delivers the best combination of fixed unit pricing and full requirements supply guarantees for forecasted as well as under-forecasted yearly demand. This combination of fixed unit price energy costs and flexible demand loads enables this client to be as budget-certain as possible as measured against historic energy demand.

Location:
Michigan

Scenario:
Existing Energy-related Budget Must Accommodate Escalating Energy Expenses

Like school districts across the county, this client’s ability to increase its non-educational budget is very limited. In an effort to fully maximize its existing budget, Legacy Energy was retained to provide diversified energy management solutions that had to be focused on non-capital strategies.

The result of our collaboration with this school district was a three-prong, non-capital intensive approach to energy management centered on demand reduction, integrated energy procurement, and energy data management. The demand reduction effort focuses on infrastructure upgrades funded solely by the savings generated from installation of high-efficiency systems, and energy awareness for students and staff via highly interactive, student-friendly assemblies and contests.

The integrated energy procurement effort involves competitive bidding of 3rd-party electricity and natural gas supply. Energy procurement is further complemented with proactive monitoring of energy commodity markets to allow maximized savings based on point-in-time market-based bulk purchases.

Energy data management is an integral component of the ongoing success of this relationship. Implementation of the Legacy Energy web-based energy data management service provides a centralized, easy to access repository of all historic and current energy expenses, providing this client with accurate and verifiable measurement of the continuing success of implemented demand reduction programs and upgrades.