Incorporated in 1867, The City of Youngstown has a population of over 60,000. In addition to typical building infrastructure of any municipality, the city operates a wastewater and water treatment plant, requiring a lot of energy. Since 2010, the City has embarked on an ambitious urban renewal project to create a "cleaner, greener, better planned and organized Youngstown".
Located in a state with deregulated electricity supply options, The City of Youngstown was looking for a knowledgeable natural gas and electricity consultant who could help secure reliable and low-cost energy suppliers, advise on energy market regulations and lower carbon solutions.
After reviewing the City’s energy procurement approach and executing an energy audit, World Kinect conducted local bids to locate more competitively priced natural gas and electricity suppliers and recommended to switch to multi-year price hedging strategy and to implement a simple and low-cost energy conservation solution.
World Kinect negotiated bids with reputable energy suppliers in Ohio, then managed the contract and supplier switching process.
World Kinect provided market intelligence to help The City understand the changing regulatory environment and ensured the City’s energy contracts always comply with legislation mandated for municipal governments.
The City used to lock in natural gas and electricity contracts on a yearly basis, even though the changing market prices greatly affected their operational budget. To diminish the impact of energy cost fluctuations, World Kinect helped to develop long-term risk management contracts, hedging and layering the energy costs for 2 to 3 years at a time, allowing The City “to develop a budget with consistency, year over year, and to build long-term strategy looking at a five-year forward forecast”.
The City implemented World Kinect’s energy audit recommendation to upgrade to more energy-efficient lighting in several older buildings and is looking forward to start incorporating renewable energy into their future energy contracts, “relying on World Kinect’s institutional knowledge”.
The multi-year hedging strategy allowed The City to “build sizable savings over the last six years, providing a balanced budget to council”. Locked-in low energy rates enabled The City “to do a better job with budgeting and looking into capital improvements”. Over the last few years, The City has reduced its electricity consumption and has seen their “energy cost go down” due to upgrading to more efficient lighting.
