Decision support for structured energy procurement

Infrastructure operators in Germany such as airports or factories are confronted with rising energy costs throughout the last years and consequently have to reconsider their energy supply and management. This competitive pressure raises the question of an optimal procurement strategy, which takes into account the individual organizational framework and conditions. In the context of the SmartEnergyHub research project this problem was addressed at the example of the Stuttgart Airport by the implementation of a decision support system to manage and evaluate long-term procurement plans. Uncertainties related to future price developments and load fluctuations have been taken into account with the help of a Monte Carlo simulation. Ex-post analysis show, that the cost of hedging has been between 10 - 15 % of stock procurement costs in the investigated scenarios due to falling energy stock prices. This raises the question, how much certainty in budget may cost. The developed software module creates transparency of the cost structure of historic procurements and facilitates the comparison of different future procurement plans with regard to expected costs and risks. The focus of the presented work lies on infrastructure operators, who follow a structured energy procurement strategy based on a long-term contract with a single energy supplier.