Documents attached

Report:  Award of Energy Contracts 2024-28

Summary:

This report seeks approval to use the LASER (Kent County Council) flexible Procurement Framework 2024-28 and award contracts for the supply of electricity and gas upon expiry of the existing arrangements on 31st March 2025.  This approach will save the Council a substantial amount of money over the term of the contracts.  Further details of this are contained within exempt Appendix A.

It is recommended that Cabinet award the Council’s electricity supply contract to Npower, and gas contract to Corona energy utilising LASER’s 2024-2028 framework agreement. The term of the Framework Agreement will be from 2022 - 2028. The supply period is 1st October 2024 through to 30th September 2028, unless terminated in accordance with the Conditions of the Framework Agreement. The combined value of the proposed call-off contracts is expected to be around £21.2m in total over the next 4 years, for the 2025-2029 contractual period with the option to extend for a further 1 year estimating the total cost to be around £26.7m.

The contracts will include the supply of electricity and gas to the Council’s corporate buildings; street lighting; housing, and schools that choose to opt-in.

This report recommends the use of the following two framework agreements:

Flexible Procurement and Supply of Half Hourly (HH), Non-Half Hourly (NHH), Metered and Unmetered Electricity with Meter Operations and Additional Services — Y22009; and Supply of Natural Gas Daily Metered and Non-Daily Metered — Y22008.

Cabinet;

1.     Approved entering into an access agreement with Kent County Council, trading as LASER, so the Council can access framework agreements for Electricity (Flex 2024-2028, Framework Number: Y22009) and Gas (Flex 2024-2028 Framework Number: Y22008).

2.     Approved the award of an electricity supply contract under LASER framework agreement Y22009, to Npower Commercial Gas Limited (Company number 03768856) (Npower), for the period of four years commencing on 1 April 2025 and expiring on 31 March 2029, with an estimated value of £14m) and with one year’s extension option with an estimated value of £17.5m.

3.     Approved the award of a gas supply contract under LASER framework agreement Y22008 to Corona Energy Retail 4 Ltd (Company number 02798334) (Corona) for the period of four years commencing on 1 April 2025 and expiring on 31 March 2029, with an estimated value of £7.2m, with an option to extend for one year with an estimated value of £9m.

4.     Approved the use of LASER’s ‘Price Certainty’ energy buying strategy for both electricity and gas.

5.     Approved the use of LASER’s ‘Procurement Only Service Option’ (POSO)