There are professions which are not new, but for which the context takes on the air of wind in its sails. This is the case for energy brokers. Indeed, if we knew about real estate loan or insurance brokers, we had heard less about their colleagues specializing in the supply of gas or electricity. In any case, before 2022 and the surge in energy prices.
With Refenergie, based in La Garde, Julien Lafontaine and Fionna Collange launched just a few months before the start of the crisis. A context that is not easy for a start-up, but which has also accentuated the needs in terms of understanding the market and the offers. And therefore given more visibility to a little-known profession.
“It is not so much the demand that has increased, underlines Fionna Collange, operations manager at Refenergie, than receptivity.” In a sector open to competition since 2004 for professionals – the target of the Var company – and 2007 for individuals, clients have in fact better seen the interest of energy brokers, especially at a time when prices were exploding.
“Our work, continues Fionna Collange, it is to advise thanks to our knowledge of a complicated market and to optimize contracts. For this, we have two main levers: bringing competition into play of course, but also volumetrics.” Understand that an energy supplier to which brokers bring a greater volume of business would be better able to offer advantageous rates. “The same principle, illustrates the operations manager, that when a baker buys large quantities of flour, rather than a few kilos.”
Around 25% difference
These professionals intervene when contracts expire, but also upstream. Julien Lafontaine, the founder of Refenergie, takes the example of a customer who paid 800 euros per megawatt/hour, in mid-winter time. “We got him a rate of 120 euros per MWh. He certainly had to pay 8,000 euros in termination fees, but the price drop allowed him to absorb them in a little over three months!”
An extreme case, he specifies: generally, the price difference oscillates between 20 and 30% but can make the difference between the survival or not of a company. Moreover, they are not the ones paying for this service, which is completely free on their side. Like all brokers, the energy specialist is paid by the supplier with whom his client contracts.
And Fionna recalls, as a final argument, that using this type of service is even recommended by the Energy Regulatory Commission in its “Guide to good practices for professional consumers for their electricity purchases and gas.
