After two weeks in suspension BidEnergy has finally told investors what it’s been up to: signing a major deal with Singtel Optus.

BidEnergy (ASX:BID) — which sells technology to help big companies manage power bills — signed a 36-month deal with Optus worth about $250,000 per year.

BidEnergy shares jumped as much as 42 per cent after the news — from 1.9c to an intraday high of 2.7c.

The shares closed Tuesday at 2.6c — well up from the 0.8c they fell to in November after the collapse of a US acquisition and exit of chairman Robert Browning and managing director Phil Adams.

The Optus contract plus several smaller deals with outfits including Berkshire Hathaway has lifted BidEnergy’s annual subscription revenue from $1.8 million to almost $2.2 million in the last three months.

The Optus contracts accounted for 69 per cent of the increase.

BidEnergy has a cloud‐based platform that uses robotic process automation to manage energy consumption over multiple sites.

Bidenergy's shares (ASX:BID) over the past six months.
Bidenergy’s shares (ASX:BID) over the past six months.

Even though helicopter pilot Mr Maine is an ex Virgin, Foxtel and Optus exec, he says he stayed out of the Optus negotiations to make sure they were free from perceived or other influences.

Power bills heading down

BidEnergy’s run of deals may be partly to do with a softening of power prices — and a desire among big companies to stay on top of money-saving opportunities.

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Mr Maine says trends he’s seeing in spot prices and energy contracts indicate the upwards run in power prices in 2017 may be over.

As a power management company, BidEnergy is positioning itself to take advantage of that.

“We come into our own when there are 1000 sites trying to manage 1000 bills every month,” he said.

“So if I was a large multi-site business, I’d be wanting understand where power prices are going because there are opportunities to save money.”