A controller for equipment that operate to store, discharge, generate, or consume one or more resources is configured to provide an objective function indicating a total value of obtaining a resource from a utility provider over a plurality of time steps subject to a load-following-block rate structure. The objective function includes a first term representing a load-following-block of the resource as being sourced from the utility provider at a fixed rate and a second term representing a remainder of the resource as being sourced from the utility provider at a variable rate. The controller is configured to use the objective function to generate values for decision variables and control the equipment to store, discharge, generate, or consume amounts of the resources indicated by the values of the decision variables at the plurality of time steps.