Companies spend millions of dollars on energy every year. Studies show that energy costs are a business's top three operating expenses. As with all significant expenses, developing a budget is considered a best practice. However, energy is more than a cost to be managed; it's an opportunity to use energy strategy to drive value. An energy roadmap that integrates energy into your company strategy is a starting point. Only then can you create an adequate budget that balances resilience, risk, growth and value and uses energy as a competitive advantage.
Before creating an energy budget, a company must develop an energy strategy that looks at the big picture and mega-trends. Variables impacting your business’s energy strategy include current regulatory conditions, supply-side dynamics, market conditions and future trends that could impact energy delivery and pricing. From there, you can translate those factors into an energy budget. Once developed, an energy budget will also inform decisions to keep your company supplied with affordable and reliable energy. It can also be used to align strategies for success on environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives allowing you to maximize company priorities.