Power firm records slump

ScottishPower posted a slump in earnings at its gas and electricity supply arm after an £18million fine for customer service failings and as mild weather saw households use less energy.

The Big Six provider, which has 5.4million gas and electricity customers, said underlying earnings from the retail supply business fell8.6% in the first six months of the year.

Itwashitwiththemultimillionpound fine fromOfgemin April after the watchdog found it “failed to treat its customers fairly” when handling calls, dealing with complaints and billing following the roll out of a new IT system.

ScottishPower was blasted for “unacceptably long call waiting times”, with the company receiving more than one million complaints between

“The division has benefited from lower costs”

June 2013 andDecember 2015.

The Spanish-owned group said half- year earnings were also impacted by higher costs as well as the mild winter weather at the start of the year, with UK electricity and gas demand down by 2.1% and 0.3% year- on- year respectively.

But ScottishPower, which is part of the Iberdrola group, said overall UK underlying earnings edged 1% higher to £205.9million as the retail woes were offset by a 121% surge in earnings at its wholesale and generation business.

The firm said the division benefited from “lower costs” including energy such as gas which slumped in price during the period. The firm also generates energy from biomass, hyrdro and is the sole customer of its renewables division which operates windfarms across Scotland.