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26 | 29th August - 4th september 2014 | utILItY WeeK Customers This week Surge in complaints costs EDF Energy £3m regulator says supplier did not handle 30 per cent increase in complaints in 2011 efficiently EDF Energy will pay £3 million to customers aer the regulator found it failed to handle a 30 per cent surge in customer com- plaints efficiently. Ofgem said that EDF Energy did not have the appropriate procedures in place to manage a deluge of customer complaints in 2011, the result of the supplier changing its IT system. Ofgem said customers were subjected to "unaccept- ably high call waiting times" when phoning the supplier to complain. Also, EDF Energy was found to have "failed to record all the required details for the complaints received", so further difficulties arose when the complaint was being dealt with. Ofgem senior partner Sarah Harrison said EDF Energy's commitment to pay £3 million to the Citizens Advice Energy Best Deal Extra scheme and the Plymouth Citizens Advice Bureau's Debt Helpline was "a step in the right direction to rebuilding consumer trust". "It's now vital for EDF and the industry as a whole to truly put customers first and put adequate resources in place to deal with complaints," Harrison added. Customer dissatisfaction with energy firms has hit record highs this year, with complaints more than dou- bling in the first half of 2014 compared with the same period last year, the energy ombudsman said. A total of 22,671 complaints were made during the first six months of 2014, more than double the 10,598 complaints made during the second half of 2013, the ombudsman said. JA energY Big six absent from table of best deals None of the UK's big six energy suppliers has featured in a league table of the top five deals over the past six months, accord- ing to data from comparison website MoneySuperMarket. Scottish Power was the last of the UK's biggest providers to feature in the best buy table but dropped out in mid-February aer independent provider Ovo Energy offered a cheaper deal. Only two of the big six appear in the top ten: British Gas and EDF Energy are in sixth and eighth place respectively with fixed price deals. The best deal on offer is from Co-op Energy. However the site cautioned consumers to keep tariff exit fees in mind before moving to a cheaper deal. Some of the largest fees are charged by the smaller independent suppliers. WAter Thames stays at bottom of SIM league Thames Water has come bot- tom of the customer service league, scoring 71 points out of a potential 100 on the regulator's annual Service Incentive Mecha- nism according to Ofwat. The company has improved its score from last year's 63, when it also came last. A spokesman for Thames Water said: "Written complaints are down a third and customer satisfaction is up 12 per cent, one of the biggest improvements in the industry." The top company for customer service this year was water-only company South Staffordshire, with 89 points. Wessex Water topped the table for water-and-sewerage companies with 87 points to put it in joint second place overall in line with Anglian Water and Sembcorp Bournemouth. energY Customers flock to Good Energy Renewable energy supplier Good Energy increased its customer base by 16 per cent from the beginning of 2014 – it now has 36 per cent more customers than it did at the end of H1 2013. Good Energy's trading update for the six months ending 30 June 2014 revealed an 82 per cent increase in the number of gas customers, and a 35 per cent increase in electricity customers. The total number of custom- ers has increased from 97,000 to 132,000. The company said: "Our strong customer growth so far this year demonstrates that our offer of competitive pricing, 100 per cent renewable electric- ity and award-winning customer service is compelling to an increasing number of consumers and businesses." Silent treatment: call waiting times too high I am the customer Richard Warren "New climate targets will see the EU through to 2030" The year 2021 marks the start of a new phase of the EU ETS and a new set of climate and energy targets to see the EU through to 2030. This may seem rather distant, but significant matters that will shape the climate change framework of the next decade are already being discussed. Of crucial importance to the manu- facturing industry are discus- sions on measures to eliminate the surplus of allowances in the EU ETS (the market stability same time as any MSR to mini- mise any impact on industrial competitiveness. Crucial to this reform must be a move to free allocation based on actual, rather than historic production, and an end to the application of the cross-sectoral correction factor that is set to reduce industry allocation by 17 per cent by 2020 and consid- erably more by 2030. Richard Warren, senior energy policy adviser, EEF, the manu- facturer's organisation. reserve or MSR) and for reforms to the industrial carbon leakage provisions post 2020. For those manufacturers participating in the EU ETS, the two discussions are intimately linked; the current provisions for carbon leakage will leave many sectors, such as steel and cement, significantly short of allowances through the 2020s and this problem becomes all the more serious with the introduction of a MSR in order to increase the carbon price to €30 to €40. EEF is calling for the radical reform of the system of free allocation for carbon leakage sectors to be introduced at the