AEC Market Education - Module #8
The Problem with DIY Energy Procurement - Why Texas Businesses Use an Energy Broker
The problem with DIY energy procurement
Most Texas businesses are overpaying for electricity. Not because they aren’t smart — because the market isn’t designed to help them.
The Texas electricity market is one of the most competitive in the world, which sounds like a buyer’s advantage. In practice, it means dozens of REPs with different pricing models, product structures, and compensation arrangements — all quoting into an information vacuum where the buyer rarely has the market context to evaluate what they’re looking at. The companies that consistently do well in this market aren’t the ones that shop the hardest. They’re the ones that shop smart, at the right time, with someone in their corner who knows what the market is actually doing.
The core asymmetry
“The REP’s inside sales team has real-time forward curves, your full load history, and a margin target. You have last month’s bill and a deadline.”
An independent energy broker, aggregator, or consultant doesn’t change the market. It changes who’s navigating it on your behalf. The difference between a well-timed, well-structured contract and a poorly-timed one can easily represent 15–30% of your annual electricity spend. For a company with a $500,000 annual energy bill, that’s $75,000–$150,000 in avoidable cost. The broker fee — built into the REP’s price and costing the customer nothing out of pocket in most arrangements — is a rounding error by comparison.
Who does what
Aggregators, brokers, and consultants: the three types of energy intermediaries
Energy intermediaries are often referred to as ABCs — Aggregators, Brokers, and Consultants. All three act as intermediaries between energy buyers and sellers. None take title to the energy itself. The differences lie in scope of service, fee structure, and what they’re optimizing for on your behalf.
Alden operates across all three categories
Depending on the engagement, Alden Energy Consulting functions as an aggregator (combining multiple customer sites or accounts into a single buying group), a broker (negotiating fixed-price contracts with retail energy providers on behalf of individual commercial customers), or a consultant (providing market analysis, bill auditing, pricing benchmarks, and strategic procurement planning on a fee basis). Most mid-market commercial engagements are broker arrangements — compensation comes from the REP, built into the contract price, with no separate invoice to the customer.
Why they needed a broker
The same problem looks different depending on where you sit in the organization
Energy procurement isn’t a one-size problem. A CFO worrying about budget variance sees it differently than a regional plant controller getting calls about a spiking electricity bill, or a VP of Procurement trying to build a repeatable process across 40 locations. Select a role below to see the specific challenge — and what changed when they stopped handling it alone.
Independent energy advisory · ERCOT Texas · commercial & industrial
The market doesn’t get simpler. Your approach to it should.
Whether you’re managing a single high-consumption facility or a portfolio of commercial properties across Texas, the fundamentals are the same: the market rewards buyers who are prepared, positioned, and working with an advisor who has no stake in the REP’s margin. Alden Energy Consulting has been doing this in ERCOT since 2011. No advertising. No exclusive arrangements with any REP. Just independent market access and a track record of executed contracts updated quarterly. The conversation costs nothing.