26.02.10 SSE sees lower demand over winter

You would have thought that the recent cold snap that hit the UK would have seen a surge in power usage across the country as we all fought to fend off the bitterly cold weather. But SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy) has just announced that its customers actually used less gas and electricity over the winter compared to last year.

The second biggest provider of electricity in the UK said that demand for gas was down 5% on last year, and electricity was down 4%.

This was clearly a surprise to many, but it seems that despite the recent cold weather, the winter actually arrived quite late in 2009, so many people held off turning up the heating until later in the year.

But some consumer groups have seen this drop in usage as further evidence of the inability of many people to afford the higher bills they are being forced to pay. As a result they are cutting back on their usage.

The director of uSwitch.com, Ann Robinson, called it “the biggest warning sign yet about the affordability of energy”.

SSE has also announced that it is in line to meet its full-year targets, and that it will see pre-tax profits of £1.29 billion. This is largely due to the increase it has seen in customer numbers, which have gone up by 200,000. It now has 9.75 million customers in total.

The chief executive of the company, Ian Marchant, said that it had performed well in the second half of the year, announcing “solid progress” in its investment projects.

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