PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a method for planning and controlling energy budgets for an industrial plant. The developed method aims to obtain a very high confidence of predicted electrical energy cost to include into the estimation of budget and a continuous control of energy consumption and cost.Design/methodology/approachThe authors propose a methodology that refines effectiveness and efficiency of budget estimation. The method relies on a three‐stage analysis: energy consumption characterization and forecasting, energy budget formulation and energy budget control. In particular, this paper deals deeply with the second and the third stages, i.e. energy budgeting and control. The methodology has been developed on the basis of a continuous improvement philosophy and project management techniques. A discussed case study shows the potential of the methodology in order to discover energy consumption inefficiencies.FindingsEnergy budgeting and control has been implemented within a set of first and second level metrics. The first level indicators allow identifying the effect of an increase of specific consumption beyond the predicted. The second level indicators allow identifying the effect of variations of price, volume, mix or loading bands from the predicted.Research limitations/implicationsIn the paper climatic variations are not considered, limiting the energy drivers to those related to production volumes.Practical implicationsThe method can be considered as a practical guide for energy budget planning and control of any industrial consumer.Originality/valueA new approach to energy budgeting and control is proposed, allowing the impact of different specific consumption or production plans (volume, mix, and load bands) to be calculated.