Energy: A multi-million-dollar blind spot on the corporate balance sheet

CBRE Energy advises Fortune 500 finance and energy teams on some of the largest corporate energy decisions in the U.S., managing billions in annual spend across power, gas, on-site assets, and the strategy that ties them together.
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U.S. corporate energy budgets carry a blind spot. Two companies that signed identical power contracts in the U.S. Northeast within weeks paid $20 million and $5 million, respectively. The only difference was the signing date. CBRE Energy's latest report examines why traditional procurement strategies no longer protect companies from today's energy market volatility, and how to apply the same monitoring and hedging discipline to energy that most finance teams already apply to foreign exchange (FX) and interest rate risk.

Key Takeaways:

  • Energy price risk often rivals FX exposure in magnitude, but most companies still manage their energy exposure as an automated procurement renewal rather than a market position, missing opportunities to save.
  • U.S. power and gas markets have structurally repriced since 2022, driven by AI data center demand, LNG export growth, and infrastructure constraints – with volatility cycles now running twice as often as before, upending the traditional procurement playbook.
  • Three questions determine whether your company has a strategy or just a renewal calendar – and most finance teams can't answer all three.

Read the full report here.

How We Do It

Transforming Energy Market Volatility Into Opportunity: $1.75M Saved for Confidential Financial Services Client

Confidential Financial Services Client | New York, NY, United States

Client Challenge: Monthly energy bills swung without warning, leaving Finance unable to forecast and Operations unable to plan. A previous advisor had locked in prices at the wrong time, and the client overpaid for months. Paying market rate on an ongoing basis left them fully exposed to price volatility with no reliable way to budget.

Solution: Our Energy business deployed CBRE kWantify™, a proprietary real-time energy price tracking platform that alerts when market conditions favor locking in savings. The solution required no new suppliers and no workflow changes, giving the client pricing visibility and budget certainty without operational disruption.

Impact: When winter 2025/26 prices hit multi-year highs, the client had the market intelligence to act at the right moment, avoiding the spike entirely. The result was predictable energy costs they could actually budget around.

Results

$1.75 Million

Downside savings preserved via market intelligence

KPIs Achieved

Accurate budget forecasting with zero workflow disruption

$3 Million

Cost-at-Risk actively monitored via CBRE kWantify™

What We Do

Reduce Energy
Costs		 Generate New
Revenue		 Access Creative
Renewables		 Optimize Existing
Positions
Strategic procurement and hedging that cuts spend and smooths volatility. Turn your portfolio into revenue through zero-investment energy solutions. Innovative structures that deliver impact beyond traditional PPAs and VPPAs. De-risk and extract value from your renewable and traditional energy portfolio.

Energy Solutions

We advise global organizations on managing energy costs, generating revenue and reducing risk.

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Market Intelligence

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