Issue details

The Council’s Schools Energy Club natural gas supply contract, which provides gas for schools, has reached its scheduled end date (31st Oct 21). This unfortunately coincides with historically high energy prices. This contract would normally be renewed under a competitive process, but there was a significant risk of locking the Council in to high rates for an extended period if the contract had been renewed in the usual way. Most energy supply contracts let by the Council include provision for extensions, but these had already been used up on this contract. In order to reduce the impact of current high prices on the Council, the decision is being taken to extend the current contract by a further three months beyond its original end date, in order to allow time for the energy market to restabilise before any new contract was let. This will still incur significantly higher costs for the Council in the short term, but will limit this impact to a few months. In the meantime, Council Officers are developing an alternative procurement approach that would reduce the Council’s exposure to energy market prices in future contracts.