Energy Contracts and Tenders

Energy procurement covers electricity and gas supply contracts for councils, schools, housing associations and public estates, and meter operator and data collection services. Utility and energy bureau services, energy brokers and energy procurement advice also come up, along with biomass heating programmes for schools in Ireland.

Stotles brings together energy tenders and contracts from 100+ portals into one search, so you do not have to check each portal separately, and you can set alerts for new opportunities across the UK and Ireland.

If you want to search the government portals directly, Find a Tender carries higher-value contracts across the UK and Contracts Finder carries lower-value contracts in England. Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Ireland's eTenders covers Irish public bodies, and many councils, NHS bodies and housing associations publish on their own e-tendering portals such as ProContract. Energy supply for Ministry of Defence sites appears on the Defence Sourcing Portal, and most public sector supply contracts are called off from frameworks run by public buying organisations.

Companies supplying electricity or gas must hold a supply licence from Ofgem, while brokers and bureau services compete on service and price without one. Most supply contracts are let through public buying organisations' frameworks, so suppliers need a place on those frameworks. Under the Procurement Act 2023, suppliers can be excluded for certain criminal convictions, insolvency or failure to pay tax.

Most public bodies buy electricity and gas through public buying organisations' energy frameworks, choosing flexible purchasing or fixed-price contracts. ESPO and NEPO both run energy and metering arrangements, and housing associations, academy trusts and universities also tender their own supply contracts.

The NEPO electricity framework, run by the Association of North East Councils, covers electricity supply to half hourly, non half hourly and unmetered sites. Police forces and county councils have called off from it by direct award. The Re:fit national framework for carbon and energy performance contracting, run through the Greater London Authority, is the route for energy performance contracts, with councils running mini-competitions under it.

The Welsh Procurement Alliance consultancy services framework is used by NHS Wales for the technical advisers, such as quantity surveyors and project managers, who support an energy performance contract.

Councils, housing associations, academy trusts, universities, water companies and the Ministry of Defence for its sites are regular buyers of energy and metering services.

Public sector energy supply contracts usually run for two to three years, with flexible framework contracts running longer and renewing periodically.

Track the end dates of existing supply contracts and framework renewal windows, and read energy and decarbonisation strategies, which show energy procurement coming due ahead of a notice. On Stotles you can track those signals and the buyers behind them, then follow a notice from pre-tender through to award.

The core codes are 09310000 (Electricity) and 09123000 (Natural gas), alongside 09121200 (Mains gas) and 31682000 (Electricity supplies).