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In January of this year its customers topped the 5 million mark for the first time following a strategy described by Scottish Power as offering innovative products at competitive prices. Let’s examine exactly what is meant by this claim. It’s true that Scottish Power has been very good on price in recent times. At the beginning of January moneysupermarket.com revealed that Scottish Power was the cheapest supplier of gas and electricity out of the “big six” energy providers in 12 out of 14 regions in the UK. British Gas, the most expensive supplier in the majority of regions, was the first of the competition to announce significant price cuts this year and recently npower has followed suit. Whilst this will make them more competitive Scottish Power will remain very good value for money in the foreseeable future. The innovative products Scottish Power talks of focus on two main areas – price capping and the environment. Price caps offer reassurance to customers that prices won’t rise above a set level no matter what happens in the underlying markets. Scottish Power currently offers the 2010 Price Stepper tariff whereby prices are fixed until April 2008 then they fall by 5% and are once again fixed until January 2010. Note that in return for the reassurance of a fixed price you will end up paying more than a customer on a variable price tariff, but this could be well worth it if we see any more price increases like there have been in recent years. There are two tariffs offered by Scottish Power that are designed with the environment in mind. If you switch to the Green Energy Fund then £10.50 will be donated each year on your behalf to a fund that invests in renewable energy. This may not sound like a lot, but if 1 in 5 of its customers opted for this tariff then over £10 million would go into the fund each year. The other green tariff is called Green Energy H2O under which Scottish Power will match your consumption of electricity with a unit of renewable electricity supplied back into the national grid. Scottish Power is currently the biggest generator of onshore wind power in the UK and it has recently announced a £10 million investment in a wave power project off Orkney that will be completed in 2008. Furthermore it has launched a project to have the influential film An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore shown in secondary schools across Scotland. We are impressed that Scottish Power is not only taking measures to combat the problem of global warming but also raising awareness amongst future generations. Another important element of any energy company is its customer service. At some point most of us will have to ring up our supplier to query a bill or switch tariff and we expect to be treated like valued customers. Energy Watch, an industry watchdog, records complaints from customers and since 1999 Scottish Power has sparked the fewest number of complaints of all the major suppliers. We take this as a good sign in an industry where customer service levels often fall below the standard expected. Overall there are more positives than negatives to having Scottish Power as your energy supplier. Over the last few years it has been very good value for money compared to the competition, but be aware that firms are lowering prices at the moment so listen out for announcements in the media and check to see if you could save as a result. On the environmental front we are very impressed with Scottish Power so if you feel like doing your bit then it could be worth having a look at one of the green tariffs on offer.
Staff editor, Gas & Electricity Section, March 2007 |
