Chair responds to SSE price freeze
26 March 2014
Reacting to the announcement that SSE will freeze it prices, the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, Tim Yeo MP, said:
"At first glance SSE's price freeze appears to be welcome news for consumers, but it follows several years of above inflation price hikes and SSE's tariffs may still not be the most competitive on the market.
The announcement that SSE is also cancelling investment in four offshore wind farms highlights the potential dangers of any promises to freeze the energy market. Britain may well find itself facing an investment short-fall if this policy is pushed through. If that happened it could aggravate the coming crunch in generating capacity and increase the risk of black-outs in future.
I warmly welcome the move by SSE to separate out its generation and supply arms. The complex vertically-integrated structure of the Big Six makes it difficult to determine where profits and losses are being made between the generation and supply part of their business. The Energy and Climate Change Committee has previously called for greater transparency to reassure consumers that energy price rises are justified and not simply introduced because of a lack of competition in the market."