When commercial energy projects stall, it’s rarely because someone made a bad decision. More often, no one made a decision at all. Emails go unanswered. Proposals arrive in different formats. Internal teams struggle to compare options. Weeks turn into months. Eventually, the project fades into the background. This is the hidden cost of ad hoc energy procurement, and it’s far more expensive than it looks.
Most buyers don’t choose ad hoc procurement. They fall into it. A developer reaches out with an offer. A consultant runs a feasibility study. Someone forwards an intro. Each step feels reasonable in isolation. But without a structured process, small inefficiencies stack up quickly.
Every vendor proposes something slightly different. Different assumptions, different contract terms, different timelines. Comparing options becomes subjective and risky.
Sustainability, asset management, procurement, finance, and operations all weigh in — often at different times and with different priorities. Without structure, alignment drags.
When nothing is standardized, every project requires bespoke analysis and debate. Teams burn time just figuring out how to decide. None of this shows up in a financial model. But it has real consequences.
The most underestimated cost in energy procurement is time. Not just calendar time, but attention.
Each stalled project:
Consumes internal bandwidth
Erodes confidence
Reduces urgency
Makes the next project harder to restart
Over time, teams stop pushing. Energy projects become “important, but not urgent.” And nothing moves.
Feasibility studies are often positioned as a low-risk first step. And on their own, they’re useful. The problem is what happens next.
Without a clear path to procurement and execution, feasibility becomes a cul-de-sac. The same analysis gets repeated. Assumptions drift. Context is lost. New stakeholders ask new questions. What looks free on paper becomes expensive in practice.
The most successful portfolio owners don’t win by finding better projects. They win by running better processes.
Structured procurement:
Reduces internal debate
Makes comparisons objective
Improves vendor engagement
Surfaces execution risk earlier
Preserves momentum
This isn’t bureaucracy. It’s leverage. When process is clear, decisions get easier — and outcomes improve.
Ad hoc procurement might limp along for one or two projects. It breaks completely at scale.
Portfolios need:
Standardized scopes
Repeatable evaluation
Transparent competition
Clear decision criteria
Without those, every project feels like starting over.
When every project is evaluated differently, decisions slow down. Standardized portfolio views like the ones you can get via the Station A App reduce friction and preserve momentum.
The biggest cost of ad hoc procurement isn’t overpaying for a project. It’s not building projects at all. Missed incentives. Lost learning. Delayed emissions reductions. Repeated false starts. For organizations serious about decarbonization, that cost adds up quickly.
If energy procurement feels slower and harder than it should, the issue may not be the projects, it may be the process.