uSwitch gas & electricity news January 2005

ScottishPower and Manweb have announced that they are increasing their prices for all new and existing online customers. Gas prices will increase by an average of 11.5% (around £36) for monthly direct debit customers and electricity prices will increase by an average of 3.6% (around £10).

npower's price freeze, which did apply to all existing customers and new customers who switched to npower before the 31st Dec 2004, has been extended until the 31st May 2005, and now applies to all npower tariffs.

Powergen are increasing the price that customers will pay for their Age Concern tariff. The prices will not come into effect until March 2005, at which point customers will see a price increase of 8.9% for electricity and 9.6% for gas.

London Energy, Sweb Energy and Seeboard Energy have announced that they are increasing their gas and electricity prices for standard customers by 8.1% and 5.4% respectively from 17th January 2005. All Online customers remain unaffected by these changes.

London Energy, Sweb Energy and Seeboard Energy part of the EDF Energy group have also introduced a new capped price product for residential customers which guarantees no further price increases before 31st March 2007 for the first 100,000 customers who apply before 31st March 2005.

Following the Tsunami disaster in South East Asia, many of the suppliers featured on uSwitch.com have made significant donations to the relief effort:

British Gas

Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, has pledged an initial £100,000 on behalf of its North American and UK businesses.

On New Years Eve, Chief Executive Sir Roy Gardner launched a UK employee fundraising appeal that will run for the next couple of months. Many employees have friends and relatives in India, Sri Lanka and other affected areas, so fundraising has already started in many offices. Centrica is likely to provide further corporate funds in support of the money raised by employees.

EDF Energy

EDF Energy's parent company, EDF, who owns the London Energy, Seeboard Energy, Sweb Energy and EDF Energy brands has pledged Euro 1 million to French charities involved in the relief programme, and EDF Energy is to donate a further £125,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. In addition, EDF is supporting practical efforts to provide emergency power supplies in some of the regions worst affected by this disaster through Electriciens Sans Frontires (ESF), an association of international solidarity featuring a network of more than 700 volunteer electricians and which is partially funded by EDF. EDF Energy is also exploring ways of collaborating with the practical help provided by ESF and is also working with other UK energy companies (via trade associations) to determine the best way it can provide practical help.

npower

npower has pledged a donation of £300,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal and will also match any personal cheques made out to the appeal by employees.

npowers parent company RWE, based in Germany, has also set up an account with the German Red Cross and will match any contributions made to the fund by employees.

Powergen

E.ON AG, Powergens parent company, has donated 1 million to German charities involved in the relief programme and E.ON UK is to donate a further £250,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal.

They are also matching employee donations, both those made to a special bank account they had set up within two days of the disaster and also those made to other organisations before staff returned to work and became aware of Powergen's account. More than £52,000 has now been paid into the special bank account and a further £16,000 has been paid by employees to the appeal independently of Powergen's account. Both sums will be match funded by E.ON UK. They are also making bucket collections at major UK sites and are collating employee donation details to hopefully ensure that they get gift aid on all donations.

Southern Electric/Scottish Hydro Electric/SWALEC/AtlanticScottish & Southern, who own the Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro Electric, SWALEC and Atlantic, is working with other energy companies via trade associations to determine the best way it can provide help, both financial and in kind, and is giving financial support to staff fund-raising activities.

If you would like to make a donation to the Tsunami Earthquake Appeal visit the Disasters Emergency Committee website: www.dec.org.uk