Utility Week

Utility Week 17th June 2016

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Customers This week 2.2m customers leave big six firms in a year New entrants have lured 7.1m customers from the big six in five years, but growth is set to slow Independent energy suppliers have continued to grow their share of the market, taking 2.2 million customers from the big six suppliers in the past 12 months, and a total of 7.1 million in the past five years, according to data from Cornwall Energy. However, this growth looks set to slow as financial services firm Morgan Stanley issued a warning that smaller suppliers will find it more difficult to gain customers from the big six over next the few years amid worsening market conditions. The research from Cornwall Energy showed that one in six dual fuel customers now gets their energy from an independent supplier, compared with one in eight last year – an average growth of 9 per cent each quarter. Meanwhile, big six dual fuel market share has dropped by 16.7 per cent since 2011, from 99.3 per cent to 82.6 per cent. Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report that the decline in wholesale gas and power prices in 2015 gave smaller suppliers an advantage over larger ones, because independents tend to purchase energy at shorter notice than the big six – which typically buy for one or two years ahead. This means they have been able to buy at lower prices, and therefore offer lower tariffs. However, they warned, with wholesale prices level- ling out since the beginning of the year, and recovering in recent weeks, "prevailing conditions may not be so helpful" looking ahead. SJ & TG WATER National portal for landlords goes live Water companies have teamed up to create a national platform for landlords to provide informa- tion about tenants responsible for paying water bills. The national register – Land- lord TAP – places all let proper- ties in England and Wales in one place. It is based on Northum- brian Water's Landlord Property Management Portal, which is currently the only online data- base of its kind. The new database will let landlords who own multiple properties supplied by different water companies use one portal, rather than registering different tenants with multiple suppliers. ENERGY Call for wider review of sales tactics EDF and Scottish Power have called for the Energy and Cli- mate Change Committee (ECCC) to conduct a wider inquiry into sales tactics aer allegations in the media that SSE used scare tactics and misinformation to keep customers. The companies urged the committee to broaden its inquiry to include smaller suppliers, third party intermediaries and price comparison websites. Scottish Power noted that in the latest statistics from Energy UK, 43 per cent of those who switched in April moved from larger to small and mid-tier sup- pliers. For this reason, it said "it might be useful for the committee to take a wider industry perspec- tive and review practices across a wider group of suppliers." SSE was accused of using unfair sales techniques in May and Ofgem has launched a probe to investigate. WATER Dee Valley promises to retain paper bills Dee Valley Water has become the latest service provider to commit to offer paper bills to its customers. The water company has been awarded a Mark of Distinction by the Keep Me Posted campaign for its commitment to provide all its 266,000 customers with paper bills and statements for as long as they want to receive them, without charge or penalty. Keep Me Posted campaign chair Judith Donovan said: "We are acknowledging Dee Val- ley's commitment to providing customers with a choice in how they are communicated with. "We know from our exten- sive research that many people depend on a paper bill to man- age their finances effectively… We hope other providers follow their example and make a com- mitment to the Keep Me Posted campaign." Low prices gave independents an advantage 24 | 17TH - 23RD JUNE 2016 | UTILITY WEEK Scottish Power has teamed up with residential energy storage firm Moixa and Bill Save UK to pilot smart energy storage bat- teries in customers' homes. The 47 Maslow energy storage systems installed in homes will enable customers to save money through access to smart tariffs, store excess solar energy or share batteries with the grid. Households will also be able to view energy, battery and solar use in real time on their smartphone. ELECTRICITY Scottish Power pilots smart batteries in customer homes Scottish Power chief execu- tive retail and generation Neil Clitheroe said: "Electricity is the only commodity that we can't store at scale. We need to develop more large-scale storage projects, like pumped-storage hydro schemes, but also smaller in-home storage ideas, like Moixa's smart battery concept. "Our work with Moixa and Bill Save UK will allow us to understand how customers interact with electricity storage at home, and how systems like this can be tailored to offer real benefits for customers." Moixa has deployed 1MWh of storage systems across 500 sites. This total encompasses a social housing study in Oxford being carried out with British Gas, and 250 systems deployed as part of a demonstration of storage opportunities in the UK for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Moixa chief executive Simon Daniel said: "Whereas renewables such as solar and wind have oen been seen as a liability to generation networks, the arrival of storage batteries provides an asset not only to householders but also to the grid, which can use batteries for balancing and other services." Daniel added that the firm would shortly be announcing the close of a round of financ- ing, including "several former chief executives of big six utilities", to highlight the impor- tance of energy storage "in the new utility landscape".

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