SSE hits out at reckless pricing by small firms

A BIG six energy supplier that has lost more than half a million customers in the past year has slammed ‘irresponsibly’ cheap pricing among smaller rivals that have collapsed.

Ten small gas and electricity providers including Iresa Energy, Our Power and Spark Energy have folded since the start of 2018 as rises in volatile wholesale prices hit those firms that offered cheap energy packages.

Stephen Forbes, chief commercial officer at SSE Energy Services, which saw its customer numbers fall from 6.45m to 5.88m last year, said ‘competition needs to be sustainable’.

He added: ‘With customers of surviving suppliers picking up the £90m tab for the ten suppliers who’ve gone bust in the last year, the impact of irresponsible undercharging is starting to bite.

‘Customers need to have confidence that suppliers aren’t able to play monopoly with their money, so [energy regulator] Ofgem’s reforms of the licensing regime cannot come quickly enough.’

Ofgem is carrying out a review in a sector that soared from 14 suppliers in 2011 to 73 in June 2018.

SSE, meanwhile, announced it shed another 160,000 customers at the end of last year and cut its profit forecast. It provided power to 5.88m households by the end of December, down from 6.04m in late September. At the end of December 2017, the company had 6.45m customer accounts.

SSE is also considering what to do with its retail arm after a merger with fellow big six provider, Innogy’s Npower, collapsed in November.