What CFOs Need to Know about (Buying) Energy in 2026

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While war and winter weather have roiled energy markets this year, CFOs should contemplate longer-term trends that are rewriting the rules of enterprise energy costs and risk management – and then take action!

By Paul Shagawat, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Transparent Energy

Energy has been in the news a lot this year. And the year prior. From the War in Iran to Winter Storm Fern, all set against the backdrop of the power-hungry AI and data center revolution, rising energy demand and cost make headlines.

But behind the headlines are more subtle shifts that CFOs need to understand now so they can help guide their companies to stronger financial outcomes today and in the future.

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

It wasn’t too long ago that the corporate narrative around energy costs was dominated by historically low natural gas prices and decade after decade of relatively flat increases in electricity demand. In 2019, for example, the typical CFO wasn’t sweating out energy costs. In fact, many remained content for their company’s energy needs to be managed at the site level, i.e., locally and in a decentralized fashion.

That’s because it’s hard to get hurt falling out the basement window.

But times have changed. Since 2019, and after removing the outsized impact of the COVID years, average wholesale energy costs are up a whopping 40-50% across the country. This isn’t a news-driven spike, it’s an inexorable rise fueled by the once-in-a-generation electrification trend and global growth of the LNG market, forces that together make operating a business, whether medium-sized enterprise or a Fortune 500 company, more expensive to run.

CFOs need to understand this as a structural change. Natural gas and electricity are significantly more expensive than they were just seven years ago, and bullish factors far outweigh bearish ones, meaning prices are more likely to go higher than lower.

So, that’s number one on our list:

1. Energy commodity costs are up 50% over 7 years, a steady, inexorable rise that is more likely to go up than down in the future.

Here’s the second:

2. Capacity costs are way up, too, as much as 1,000% in some territories. And what you don’t know about rising capacity costs can and will hurt your financial performance.

Capacity costs are one of the many “other” charges on a company’s power bill, otherwise known as “ancillary” charges. While capacity costs – a levy assessed to every business based on how much power they consume on the grid’s busiest days – used to be the worry of a company’s energy manager, they now are a CFO-level concern. That’s because capacity charges have spiked in unprecedented ways. For example, in PJM, the largest electricity service territory in the U.S., capacity prices jumped 800% in 2025 and are set to make another triple-digit rise in 2026 and 2027.

Suddenly enterprise electric bills across the nation are up 20% or more, and shocked CFOs are expected to pick up the pieces.

3. Many Enterprise Energy Procurement Strategies Remain Rooted in the Past

Against the backdrop of dramatically higher energy commodity prices and ancillary costs, the majority of companies, including some of the largest energy users in the world, continue to buy energy like it’s 1999. That means instead of using modern procurement practices rooted in economic theory, they remain content to sole source deals to a preferred provider (who is often taking advantage of them) or have local site managers procure as they like.

CFOs need to know that not modernizing their company’s energy procurement approach is a catastrophic mistake. These legacy approaches fail to tap into the competitive dynamics of U.S. natural gas and electricity markets. And by not doing so, you are leaving money on the table.

A Change in Approach is Needed

Every CFO in the U.S., especially now, is looking for ways to decrease OPEX without increasing human capital. And while many are willing to sign six-and-seven figure checks to Big Four consulting firms to find ways to do so, there is a proven and readily available energy procurement process that creates a dynamic, competitive, and transparent market for your energy load for free, one that will drive down the cost your company pays for electricity and natural gas.

Simply put, online auctions put economic theory into practice: they make a market. And when administered by energy experts who will help your organization go to market when the opportunity for cost containment and risk mitigation is greatest, will deliver you savings you can reinvest into other projects to grow your business.

The choice here for CFOs is clear. Remain hands off and let the rising tide of energy costs ruin your bottom line, or adopt a proactive, proven approach to buying energy that gives you every possible pricing advantage and the prospect of reinvesting the healthy proceeds. All without added headcount.

Your OPEX-reducing energy future awaits.

If you’d like to explore an advisory relationship that combines best-in-class energy strategy and auction-based procurement, contact Brian Dufresne at bdufresne@transparentedge.com or Paul Shagawat at pshagawat@transparentedge.com.

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