You have to twist your mind from the UK to here, but the principle dramatically demonstrated in "No Hot Air" is the same. Aggregation for natural gas in today's market cannot beat the default price.
A fixed price is basically the projected monthly volume multiplied by the monthly price. November is roughly 10% of an annual heating load. If one fixed a price in September 2008 for one year, November was £1 a therm. The lowest possible price one could pay for November in advance was on 32.05 in early September. But the wholesale index price for System Average Price has been below 25 this month.
In English: Consultants cannot beat the default price, the price of doing nothing. So what are people paying them for?
