CLA Energy Services: Look beyond today's energy volatility and secure long-term certainty
Find out how CLA members can stabilise their business through long-term energy contracts
Nobody knows which direction the energy market will go tomorrow.
Market volatility is not unique to 2026, but geopolitical tensions and extreme weather conditions have put businesses on a rollercoaster. Energy prices have soared due to the United States-Iran conflict. The cost of this winter’s gas contracts rose by 80% in February 2026 when tensions escalated.
CLA members approaching the end of their contracts are exposed to the full force of headlines and market movements. Nobody can call the next move, but we can help take your estate or rural business off the rollercoaster. We can stop each morning’s headlines from becoming your problem.
What happened to prices?
The Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes, a critical chokepoint for exports of oil and liquefied natural gas used in the production of energy, has effectively been closed to commercial traffic due to ongoing conflict.
Global energy prices spiked when constrained supply met consistent global demand. Even if the worst is behind us, market volatility is not over. And the repercussions of the conflict will continue to be felt.
Europe is heading into winter, the season of peak demand for oil and gas, with depleted reserves and no certainty that tensions won’t reignite.
What can CLA members do?
Looking beyond immediate volatility, there is an opportunity to bring certainty and predictability back into your energy costs. While short-term market prices continue to lurch up and down, long-term prices remain calm and significantly discounted against current values.
We can help you negotiate a contract with a lower immediate unit rate that will stabilise costs for a year, in the hopes that the conflict will have ended by the time it needs to be renewed. Or you could look ahead to calmer waters by exploring longer-term fixed contracts.
Extended deals often come with a higher unit rate, but they offer valuable certainty many businesses need to keep their operations flowing with confidence.
How we saved a CLA member £1,000,000
At CLA Energy Services, we regularly hear concerns from CLA members about their energy procurement in a volatile market and have already helped numerous farms and rural businesses reduce their costs.
We worked with a member who was using a buying group to procure their energy. They got in touch with us when they were forced to scale down their operations to 60% capacity due to being unable to forecast costs and afford bills.
We performed a full tendering exercise with our panel of suppliers. This resulted in beating the buying group’s fixed contract offer by around 11p/kWh with annual savings of £227,000 per year.
The member secured a fixed cost for 4.5 years, which gave them full budget certainty at a price they could afford. This generated more than £1 million in savings over the contract term. As a result, the business was able to dial up their operations to full capacity under new, predictable conditions.
Get in touch
CLA Energy Services can help rural businesses like yours make smart decisions that lead to real change.
We can review your current contract and renewal timeline before approaching suppliers to find a contract that suits your business, manages costs and provides greater certainty.
Book a free energy health check, call 0808 164 6151 or email us at energyservices@cla.org.uk to see how we can help.