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Welcome to the London Energy Project

The London Energy Project was set up to:

  • review London authorities' energy procurement processes and strategies
  • identify and promote best practice within energy procurement.

This year considerable progress has been made. Three professional buying organisations (PBOs) have been rigorously evaluated by an independent customer panel against London's Specification of Requirements.

New energy contracts available

The London Energy Project is pleased to confirm that following evaluation, two PBOs, Laser and OGCbuying.solutions, have sufficiently satisfied the Specification of Requirements. Both organisations offer Pan Government Energy Project-approved flexible risk- managed contracts*. The third PBO, The Energy Consortium (TEC), is working towards developing a new additional product for the public sector that will meet these requirements in the near future.

The following links provide further guidance and support on:

  • how an organisation can evaluate the procurement options available
  • the benefits of adopting the new contracts
  • how the PBOs will deliver their services.

In September, the London Energy Project (LEP) held a workshop to provide attendees with a clearer understanding of the techniques and processes required to carry out risk managed, flexible procurement, the volumes required to aggregate contracts and how the evaluations of service providers were conducted. The presentations also clarified benefits and efficiency gains and energy procurement costs avoidance.

The London Energy Project recommends that London public sector bodies adopt flexible risk managed energy procurement by migrating energy volumes to one of the professional buying organisations' contracts. These are:

  • Laser's flexible gas and electricity contracts only
  • OGCbuying.solutions' flexible gas and electricity contracts.

History of the project
LB Haringey has been leading on this project since 2005. In this time we have:

  • carried out a review of the energy procurement processes and strategies of London and South East authorities
  • developed an action plan to help authorities identify and manage the areas that enable effective and efficient energy procurement
  • run workshops on Automated Meter Reading and Financial Energy Management, in support of best practice in energy procurement
  • developed a best practice energy procurement model to enable authorities to better manage their energy budgets in the volatile energy market
  • developed a best practice specification of requirements that represents what local authorities expect from energy procurement service providers
  • presented authorities with a solution that meets the preferred procurement model and specification of requirements developed in consulation with local authorities, in line with best practice.

 In 2008 we will:

  • continue to support authority progress against the action plan
  • continue to feed into a UK public sector review of energy procurement, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence.

The London Centre of Excellence recently merged with London's improvement body - Capital Ambition - and London Connects, to form London's Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (IEP). The new organisation retains the name Capital Ambition, and is responsible for all former LCE projects.

A website is being created for the new Capital Ambition, but in the meantime this site continues to be updated with all the latest information on the energy project, as well as important legacy documents.

*Definition of a flexible contract - a contract with the ability to fix volumes over a series of purchases in the wholesale market.

It should be noted that past performance is not a guide to future performance, thus the saving from flexible procurement will vary.