Pricing power

The electricity sector is quietly digesting new analysis by the electricity pricing review, which shows that people in poor areas pay more for power than those living in rich areas, even taking their usage into account. There is no obvious intent to charge by socio-economic status, but this appears to be happening because of a range of factors — not just charges and customer behaviour, but also a combination of the way bills are structured, such as discounts, rewards and other factors. The problem is that there is no easy way to fix this, and the review might just come up with its own ideas on how this issue should be addressed, which could have much wider ramifications.