Hobson's choice (Electricity in general)

Member Name: PowerMad

Product:	Electricity in general
Date:	28/12/03 (3107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Erm..........., Not sure, Don't think there are any

Disadvantages: Hassle, Inconvenience, Don't know which company to contact

Can anybody enlighten me as to how the market deregulation of gas and electricity is actually saving consumers money? As an ex utility company employee, I remember the days when you had to get your gas from the gas board (BritishGas (branded Scottish Gas north of the border) and your electricity from your the local electricity board for your region: originally Eastern Electricity Board (Eastern Electric), East Midlands Electricity Board (Powergen), London Electricity Board (London Electricity), Merseyside and North Wales Electricity Board (Manweb), Midlands Electricity Board (MEB), Northern Electricity Board (Northern Electric), North West Electricity Board (Norweb), South East Electricity Board (SEEBOARD), Southern Electricity Board (Southern Electric), South Wales Electricity Board (SWALEC), South West Electricity Board (SWEB), Yorkshire Electricity Board (YEB), North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board (Scottish Hydro) or South of Scotland Electricity Board (ScottishPower).

TXU took over Eastern Electric and Norweb to become TXU Energi, ScottishPower took over Manweb and are now ScottishPower Manweb, MEB became nPower who then took over Northern Electric and Yorkshire Electricity and are now nPower Midlands, nPower Northern and nPower Yorkshire respectively, Southern Electric and Scottish Hydro merged to become Scottish & Southern Energy and EDF - a French company (Electricite de France) - took over London Electricity and SEEBOARD.

Then Powergen took over TXU Energi, Scottish & Southern Energy took over SWALEC and EDF took over SWEB.

So we have gone from having 15 main market players (14 regional electricity supply companies (the old electricity boards) and 1 national gas supply company to having only 6 main players (other than the smaller new entrants to the market) in the gas and electricity supply market which are:

* Centrica (branded as British Gas & Scottish Gas)
* Powergen
* EDF (branded as London Energy, Seeboard E
nergy & SWEB Energy)
* nPower (branded as nPower Midlands, nPower Northern & nPower Yorkshire)
* Scottish & Southern (branded as Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro & SWALEC)
* Scottish Power (branded as ScottishPower and ScottishPower Manweb)

How can this be deemed to be competitive, value for money and a greater choice for the consumer? Fair enough if there were still 15 large companies (plus all the various smaller entrants to the market) competing for your custom - experience tells me that the service offered by all of the above mentioned companies varies from absolutely appalling to outstandingly excellent depending upon the manner in which your query and/or complaint is presented and the willingness to help of the company employee with whom you end up dealing with - at least there would be a minimum of 15 different pricing strategies to choose from, but a situation where there are now only a few dominant market players can, in no way, be good news for the consumer.

The above company brands refer to energy supply (companies that actually bill for gas and electricity). Electricity distribution is a similarly (un)competitive market - the old regional electricity boards were responsible for generation, transmission, distribution and supply within their respective areas. Part of OFGEM's requirements for the ongoing deregulation of energy supply is that generation, transmission & distribution activities now require to branded as separate entities from supply activities, even if, ultimately, they are part of the same company.

So now we have a situation where 24Seven took over responsibility for the former Eastern Electricity and London Electricity supply areas, East Midlands Electricity were responsible for the East Midlands area distribution network, the MEB supply distribution area became GPU Power and then Aquila Networks, Northern Electric and Yorkshire Electric distribution areas became NEDL (Northern Electric Distribut
ion) and YEDL (Yorkshire Electric Distribution), Norweb's distribution area became United Utilities, SEEBOARD distribution became SEEBOARD PowerCare, Southern Electric and Hydro Electric distribution areas became Scottish & Southern Energy Distribution, the SWEB and SWALEC distribution areas became Western Power and the ScottishPower and Manweb distribution areas became SP Power Systems. Then EDF Energy then became responsible for 24Seven and then took over SEEBOARD PowerCare. Electricity distribution now consists of 8 main players, as opposed to 14 originally.

The purpose of deregulation of gas and electricity markets is (allegedly) to give consumers more choice and to make it more transparent which companies are responsible for all of the above mentioned activities, but, as far as I can see, consumers are only being taken for a ride. Regardless of the endless variety of logos available at the top of your bill, there is ultimately only very few different pricing strategies available; not to mention the cost difficulties encountered in actually contacting your supplier of choice (despite the various communication methods available (phone, fax, e-mail, website, text, etc.)

Maybe I'm just an old cynic, but the way things are going we'll soon end up with only or two or three dominant market players (worst case scenario - only one, so we're back to square one (effectively) - only one company to choose from for a particular service.

So, what exactly what is the point of deregulation?

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