Resilience Planning
Honest assessment of what an outage actually costs you per hour, and what level of backup that justifies.
Vhaeger Energy
Reliable power, sensibly priced.
Chicago advisory for facilities that cannot afford an outage — resilience planning, procurement and load management for the industrial Midwest.
Start a ConversationAbout Us
For most of our clients, electricity is not primarily a cost question. It's a continuity question. A cold storage facility losing power for six hours has a very different problem from an office losing power for six hours.
Vhaeger Energy was built in Chicago around that distinction. Theodore Hayes founded the practice after years in industrial facilities management, and the firm's advice reflects a bias toward what actually keeps production running rather than what looks best on an energy dashboard.
We serve manufacturers, food processors and healthcare facilities across Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. We hold no supplier relationships and specify no brands, which lets us say plainly when an existing installation is adequate and the money is better spent elsewhere.
Our Expertise
Six areas where we do our most useful work for Chicago businesses.
Load Management
Demand-charge reduction through scheduling and peak shaving, often with no capital expenditure at all.
Procurement Support
Supply contract negotiation in Illinois' deregulated market, including the terms buried past page twenty.
Backup Generation
Generator and UPS sizing matched to critical load, plus the maintenance regime that keeps it working.
Power Quality
Diagnosis of harmonics, sags and transients that damage equipment and are usually blamed on the utility.
Efficiency Retrofits
Lighting, motors and HVAC upgrades ranked strictly by payback rather than by available rebate.
Our Approach
- Cost the outage firstEvery resilience recommendation starts from what downtime costs you per hour.
- Free wins before capitalScheduling and tariff changes come before anything requiring a purchase order.
- Payback, not rebateA poor investment doesn't improve because someone else subsidises part of it.
- Vendor-neutralNo supplier relationships, no specification bias, no commissions.
Contact Us
Tell us what you're weighing up. We'll reply within one business day.