Chris Huhne, UK Energy Secretary, has recently taken some time for a Q&A session in today’s Financial Times. When we at Torse found out about this arrangement, we jumped at the chance to ask the Coalition Governments energy expert a question or two, here’s how it went:
At present the Environment Agency is slowly but surely trying to understand exactly how many people should have registered for the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, whether it be as full participants or simple information disclosures. With 3,100 confirmed full participants against a pre-estimated 5,000, at the moment no one’s quite sure of the total numbers.
Businesses, the media, trade associations and intermediaries representing businesses have all been moaning (justifiably most would agree) about the increasing power of the Big Six energy companies. In practice, against the background of fairly arduous economic situation for all, suppliers have been ‘digging in their heels’ and now their strategic positioning; it’s no longer about acquiring new customers, rather squeezing increasing margins out of the ones that they already have and of course dumping customers where the required margins are missing.
Looks like some good news to come out of The Queen’s Presentation to the Nation. Further to some of our comments last month (see Pirates & Energy Companies) about legislation appearing on the horizon, sailing to the rescue of not only Consumers but Business as well, looks like there will be real regulations in place. Not only that, finally, maybe OFGEM will get some teeth. The general contempt with which much of the supplier base treats businesses may be about to change.