Nothing to paste? — a manufacturing plant's supply renewal: two fixed bids and a block-and-index quote against a rising forward curve, a demand ratchet about to set from a chiller replacement, and a broker pushing to sign a 36-month fixed deal this week. Or , rendered from a saved reply with no run and no charge.
Paste the record, not a summary
The bill lines, the bid table, the term sheet, the email thread. If you know the usage, the peak and the rates, enter those too — the calculator runs in your browser, free, no sign-in.
Say what market and what tolerance
ERCOT and a regulated utility owe different answers, and so do a plant that cannot tolerate 5% variance and one that can ride 20%. The decision you need changes the answer, and the verdict says so.
Read the next moves first
The scenario and the risk are argued from the page, the numbers show their arithmetic, the strategy fits the load and the budget, and every watch item carries the threshold that trips it.
Take the artifact away
Copy or download the one-page memo for whoever signs, export the moves as a CSV task list with owners and dates, put every dated commitment in a calendar, and open a prefilled reply to the broker — instead of retyping any of it.
What is a demand ratchet, and why does one 15-minute interval matter?
A ratchet clause bills the greater of the month's actual demand and a percentage — commonly 60 to 80% — of the highest demand in the preceding 11 months. One 15-minute interval can raise the billed-demand floor for the rest of the year, and it keeps billing whichever supplier you choose, because it lives in the delivery tariff and not in the supply contract. The calculator above computes the step: the old floor, the new floor, the difference in kW, and what that difference costs over the eleven months it binds.
Should I lock a fixed price or stay on index?
Fixed buys budget certainty at a premium — typically 5–12% over the forward curve at signing — and is right when variance above about 5% triggers management review, or the curve sits in the bottom third of its five-year range. Index only works if the organization genuinely tolerates 15–20% variance, and never into a scarcity-priced season without a cap or a hedge. A load factor of 0.75 or better argues for block-and-index; large loads on 24–36 month terms usually argue for layering purchases in tranches, so there is no single point of regret.
Is the cheapest bid the cheapest supply?
Not reliably. A headline energy price excludes capacity, transmission, ancillaries and whatever risk premium the supplier priced into the structure, and a 36-month price is not comparable to a 12-month price on the number alone. The free bid comparison annualizes each bid against your usage so the spread shows up in dollars a year rather than fractions of a cent — and it says plainly that it is comparing headline energy price only.
What does PPA basis risk actually cost?
Basis is the persistent difference between the price at the generator's node and the hub the contract settles against; in constrained zones it runs $3–12/MWh, straight off the spread you thought you bought. Demand five or more years of node-to-hub history before signing. Curtailment compounds it — ERCOT wind runs 3–8% a year, CAISO solar 5–12% in spring — so settle on scheduled rather than delivered generation, or cap it.
Does Watt Desk see my bill or my bids?
The calculator and the interval-file reader run entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, nothing needs a sign-in. Only pressing Work the decision sends the pasted material to the model that writes the assessment, and the app shows what it reserves before you do. Assessments you keep live on your own SkillSafe account rather than in this browser alone, which is what makes the comparison against last week's call possible at all.