LONDON - Electricity supplier Scottish Power has announced that it would be affecting a 12 percent increase in the monthly household electricity bills starting this month.
"Like all energy suppliers, Scottish Power has been hit by the unprecedented rise in wholesale prices," said Willie MacDiarmid, of Scottish Power. "We have frozen prices for as long as possible, but unfortunately are now forced to pass on part of this increase to customers." He blamed the increasing wholesale prices for this move to increase the prices. Scottish Power's move comes weeks after main rival Scottish Gas announced a 14.2 percent hike in its prices.
Scottish Power has taken the bottom-rung customers into consideration and has announced a Scottish Power Capped Price Offer that intends to protect customers from further increases till October 2007. The company is encouraging customers to switch over to this plan.
This hike in prices has come in for severe criticism from consumer groups. "That prices are going up at a time of year when energy consumption increases and forecasters are warning of a harsh winter is at best unfortunate," said Graham Kerr of Energywatch Scotland. "In a bid to reduce the impact of the price rises Energywatch Scotland urges all consumers to keep their bills in check by sensibly reducing their energy consumption, switching to cheaper payment methods such as direct debit and shopping around for a better energy deal."
Scottish National Party's energy spokesman Richard Lochhead was more vocal in his criticism, "It is unacceptable that the people of Scotland are paying the consequence from not having control of energy policy to achieve self-sufficiency and security of supplies," he observed.
Posted
on : Thu, 06 Oct 2005 04:40 GMT | General News
By : Chris Rowe
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