ScottishPower welcomes the Government’s announcement of proposals to reduce the impact of the Energy Company Obligation, an introduction of a universal rebate and other measures. Once implemented early in the New Year, these initiatives will lead to real savings for customers in 2014 and ScottishPower agrees with Government estimates which suggest total savings for households of around £50 for a typical dual fuel customer*.
Neil Clitheroe, CEO of Retail and Generation at ScottishPower, said:
“We are acutely aware of the burden that higher gas and electricity bills place on households and have been working with Government to ease the strain. We are pleased the Government has recognised the impact of green and social levies on rising consumer energy bills and we have worked collaboratively with them to identify a number of individual savings not only to these programmes, but also other rising input costs.
“We look forward to working with Government on the detail of these proposals. We will continue to be as open as possible about consumer bills, explaining the impact of input costs on a line by line basis. As always, we will continue to try and avoid further price rises in 2014, but this will depend on whether there are increases in wholesale energy prices or other costs outside our control.
“We welcome all of these changes proposed by Government, especially those to the ECO programme, as they represent a strong commitment to have a more rational debate on energy policy in the UK. We must build on this progress and strengthen the debate by implementing long term, structural imaginative initiatives to make energy use more efficient, energy bills more affordable and targeting support to where it is most needed. We must establish a stable political and regulatory consensus on energy bills that is sustainable, robust and which gives us the incentive and encouragement to invest to meet the energy challenges this country faces.”
ECO environmental programme
As part of its recent pricing announcement, ScottishPower stated that the ECO environmental programme was costing £61 per household per year. The company’s expectation is that these changes announced by Government will reduce the cost of ECO by approximately half.
Distribution Costs
Electricity distribution network operators willing to voluntarily reduce distribution network costs in 2014-15, enables a £5 per annum saving.
Universal Rebate
The taxpayer funded rebate of £12 will be applied to all households in line with the Government timetable.
Media information: Simon McMillan - 0141 614 4582 / 07753 622 257
* Based on a standard dual fuel customer (averaged across Great Britain) using the typical annual household energy consumption levels to be adopted by Ofgem in January 2014 of 13,500kWh of gas and 3,200kWh of electricity; includes VAT. 2.2 million ScottishPower customers on standard tariffs were affected by increases to domestic gas and electricity prices announced back on 24th October 2013.