Supply
We supply electricity, gas and other services to over 10 million domestic and business customers in the UK and Ireland.
Our role is to produce the electricity and gas customers need, and arrange for it to be distributed through the relevant networks, provide services such as metering and billing and promote efficient use of energy.
We supply electricity and gas as:
Our responsible pricing policy ensures that we provide consistently competitive prices over the medium term, protecting our customers from the full impact of volatile wholesale prices.
In addition to energy customer accounts, we provide home services such as:
- gas boiler, central heating and wiring maintenance and installation products and services; and
- telephone line rental, calls and broadband services.
Our key goals in energy supply are to:
- offer consistently competitive prices over the medium term;
- provide market-leading products and related services to help transform energy consumption; and
- deliver a high quality of service to customers.
Using energy more efficiently is the fastest and most sustainable way of reducing customers' energy costs, sustaining supplies for the long term and securing reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide. We have obligations under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) and the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP):
- CERT is a scheme to deliver energy efficiency measures to households throughout Great Britain - During 2010, we funded the installation of cavity wall insulation in 180,000 homes and loft insulation in 165,000 homes (excluding DIY insulation).
- CESP is a new obligation on both energy suppliers and electricity generators to save emissions of carbon dioxide in domestic customers' homes in areas of the country prescribed by the UK government. We have already started work on CESP projects in England, Scotland and Wales.
Our position as the customer service benchmark for the rest of the energy supply industry is illustrated by:
- the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, published in 2010, in which we achieved the top ranking in the utility sector.
- the Customer Satisfaction Report from uSwitch.com, published in 2010, in which we were ranked the best energy supplier for the seventh successive time; and
- the Consumer Focus customer complaints rankings, published in March 2011, in which SSE again emerged as the best, being the only company with a four star rating.
We believe that any type of poverty, including fuel poverty, results fundamentally from an individual or household having insufficient income. Nevertheless, we fulfil two key responsibilities in order to help customers who struggle to pay for their basic energy needs:
- We operated schemes with a value of around £28m in 2010/11, including our energyplus Care tariff, rebate tariffs and other services.
- We offer tailor-made payment arrangements that suit our customer financial circumstances. In 2011, over 240,000 customers were helped by this.