SSE's household customers and energy consumption falls

23rd Jan 2014 07:54

- Household customers and consumption falls- Wholesale electricity output rises, gas drops- SSE to cap energy pricesUK electric utility company SSE has reported a drop in household consumption in the nine months to December 31st 2013.The average consumption of electricity by households fell by 4.3% to 2,860 kilowatt hour (kWh) from 2,990kWh and the average consumption of gas declined by 9.55 from 315 terms to 285 terms. It reflected a dip in the number of electricity and gas customer accounts in the UK to 9.22m from 9.47m.In the wholesale business, total electricity output from gas-fired power stations was 7.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), compared with 6.4TWh the previous year. Output from coal-fired power stations was 11.3TWh, down from 13.6TWh.Wholesale output from gas production assets rose to 300m therms from 131m therms, reflecting the contribution of the Sean gas field assets acquired in April 2013.Chief Executive, Alistair Phillips-Davies, said: "Despite what is clearly a difficult business environment, the overall performance of the company has been solid in 2013/14 and the efforts of employees, shown recently in the response to the Christmas week storms, have been excellent. It is encouraging that SSE is on course to deliver real growth in the dividend and increases in adjusted earnings per share1 and adjusted profit before tax."The operating environment is not expected to be any easier in 2014/15 but we have a well-balanced range of businesses and a good range of assets and we are determined to maintain our operational focus and financial discipline for the benefit of customers and investors."Phillips-Davies also applauded the government's efforts to bring down the cost of energy bills. However, he noted that there was still more work to do in order to shift the full cost burden of environmental and social policies from the energy bill payer to the taxpayer. The UK government has announced plans to reduce the future costs associated with the Energy Company Obligation and to facilitate other measures to reduce the cost of electricity and gas for customers. SSE will in turn reduce its household energy prices on March 24th and pass on the cost saving to customers on fixed and capped price tariffs. The firm intends to cap energy prices at their new level until at least spring in 2015.RD