SSE agrees that consumers need a fair deal on energy prices. That’s why we've been campaigning on behalf of all of our customers to eliminate the cause of regional price differentials across the UK.
Earlier this year, we raised the issue of regional pricing with the Competition Markets Authority (CMA) as part of their inquiry into the UK energy market. We hope that they listen to our proposals.
Currently, the charges for using networks - the pipes and wires that deliver gas and electricity to people’s homes – vary by region with 14 different charges across Great Britain’s electricity market. This reflects the higher costs to build and maintain the networks in areas of the country where there is rough terrain and more rural communities, or where more investment is required.
Customers pay this network charge, no matter whether they are with SSE or any other energy supplier, through their energy bills. It's the way the market has been set up to pay for the maintenance of electricity networks.
To help make things fairer and simpler, we think these costs should be ‘flattened out’ to one standard charge for every customer across Great Britain.
This ‘national’ approach to the pricing of electricity and gas would mean that a customer living in Benbecula, Bristol or Bradford, would pay the same networks charge, reducing some of the complexities of energy for customers. The vital networks upgrade work would be funded, but the costs would be spread across all electricity customers.
At the moment, SSE does its best to simplify things and rationalises the 14 regions down to just five when we set our prices - making it fairer. SSE has a policy of charging its retail customers according to the underlying costs it takes to supply them, but if we can change the underlying costs, the problem goes away - and only Government, the Regulator or the CMA can make this happen.
Whilst, there are some interventions from Government to minimise the differences, these fall well short of properly spreading the costs across all consumers to tackle the issue properly.
Ultimately, SSE understands concerns in the areas that pay more and is pushing for action to benefit customers, no matter where they live. The interest in this issue in the last few days confirms just why this is so important.