Weekend press round-up: Scottish Power accused of ‘harassment’

Our latest summary from the national papers includes a report accusing Scottish Power of "cruel harassment" after a number of non-customers claimed they were billed for large debts by the energy supplier. Also in Scotland, calls have been made for an inquiry into the collapse of an energy company backed by the Scottish government. Meanwhile Anglian Water co-owner First State Investments wants to buy the UK arm of an energy company that converts waste into power, according to City sources.

Scottish Power accused of ‘cruel’ harassment of householders over debts they don’t owe

The ordeal began with a text informing Gerald Slater that he owed Scottish Power £300 and urged him to get in touch. Slater is not, and never has been, a Scottish Power customer and assumed it was a scam. Then the calls started. They repeated he owed £300 in unpaid fuel charges, although no bill had ever been sent to his home. The calls pursued him to his wife’s hospital bedside where she was being treated for cancer.

“At one point I had to leave the ward and broke down while talking to Scottish Power,” he says. “The representative did not even know why he was speaking to me as the call had been auto-dialled and he asked me to go through security to find out the reason.”

Slater was assured that his details did not match the indebted account and was referred to a complaints line. When he rang, he was told his complaint could not be accepted because he was not a Scottish Power customer.

Slater shares this onerous limbo with a crowd of other householders who are being pursued by Scottish Power for debts they don’t owe.

Pensioner Brenda Fuller* was hounded for eight years by letters addressed to a stranger demanding £7,000, although she has been supplied by British Gas for the 40 years she has lived at her home. The Energy Ombudsman upheld her complaint and ordered Scottish Power to cease all contact. Within months another £7,000 bill arrived with threats of bailiffs if she didn’t pay and she feared even leaving her house.

Paul Walsh was doorstepped by debt collectors acting for Scottish Power after he’d spent a year contesting bills for an account that wasn’t his.

Emma Gillard* and her partner tried for four years to persuade Scottish Power they had never been customers. The company continued to demand sums of up to £12,000 in letters addressed first to “The Occupier” and then, after they had identified themselves in their complaints, in each of their names. Eventually, it conceded an error, only to send debt collectors to their door six months later with a bill for £10,000.

All three only broke free when the Observer got involved. In all the cases Scottish Power blamed the national database which had linked the wrong meter numbers to their addresses. Meter numbers allow utilities companies to identify the households they supply, and it’s thought that as many as one in 10 are incorrectly recorded on the gas and electricity databases. Newly converted flats are particularly prone to mix-ups, leading to some people paying for their neighbours’ usage, and it’s up to suppliers to amend incorrect records. The trouble with Scottish Power is that it repeatedly fails to address the problem when bills are contested.

The utilities giant, rated “one star” by 96% of reviews on Trustpilot, was the most complained about energy supplier last year, with 8,441 cases referred to the Energy Ombudsman.

It appears to have learned little since it was fined £18m by the regulator Ofgem in 2016. Billing chaos caused by a new IT system prompted the penalty and Ofgem admonished it for inadequate complaints handling and unfair treatment of customers.

Four years on, mismatched meter numbers and abysmal record keeping is unleashing new havoc. Householders who try to contest phantom bills face being told there is no record of them on their system. If, like Gillard, they confirm their identity to customer services, they risk mystery bills addressed to “The Occupier” being resent in their name.

Slater, in desperation, fired off two letters to the chief executive. In response he received a bizarre email from the directors’ support team which appeared to confuse him with another customer. It thanked him for accepting a nonexistent phone call that morning and confirmed that his nonexistent account would be restored to a dual-fuel tariff “as requested”.

In vain, he has pointed out that he received no such call, made no such request and had never had an account with Scottish Power. The Energy Ombudsman told him it was unable to investigate because he had not completed Scottish Power’s complaints process. Scottish Power insists he can’t make a formal complaint because he does not have an account.

In the last month several more non-customers have contacted the Observer in similar despair.

Anita Franklin begged for help after Scottish Power representatives gained entry to her disabled son’s house and changed his meter to a prepayment unit while he was out. Her son has been a customer of Npower since 2011, but last September, out of the blue, a bill arrived from Scottish Power demanding £1,600.

“They say they have been supplying him for the last six years, but we have never been billed by them,” she says. “The bill is now nearly £2,000 and they’re claiming we have three accounts, one of them set up with someone else’s details. But we have no idea why, as no one ever answers our questions on the numerous times we’ve phoned and emailed.”

Dave Evans is being chased for £5,445 for electricity used between May and November 2017. He had moved out of his rented apartment nine months before the billed period and npower had supplied his energy while he was there. “They are requiring me to prove I wasn’t residing at the address during that period, and have stated that only information from the owner or landlord would help,” he says. “I have tried to contact my previous landlord via email, but this has bounced back.”

Guy Bull is trying to fend off demands for £895 in the name of “The Occupier” after Scottish Power decided he was a customer, even though he is paying another supplier. “When I contact Scottish Power they ask for my name and meter number but I don’t want to reveal them in case they attach it to the debt,” he explains. “I do not live in a flat, so I am not sure how they manage to make this mistake, but they certainly don’t seem to want to do anything about it.”

Ofgem said that this scale of misbilling seems to be peculiar to Scottish Power. “We are engaging with it on this type of issue, alongside wider issues with how they resolve all customer complaints,” it says. “We’re not aware of this being widespread among other suppliers.”

Scottish Power’s press office is as elusive as its customer services with departed officers listed as contacts, email addresses incommunicado and phone lines not answered. The Observer first alerted it to complaints in the new year. Still no response.

* Names have been changed

The Observer

Anglian Water in race to buy ‘rubbish energy’ company

The co-owner of Anglian Water has emerged as a contender in a £1.5bn race to buy a company that generates power by burning rubbish.

First State Investments, an Australian fund manager that last year sold Electricity North West, wants to buy Wheelabrator’s UK arm, according to City sources. The division has been put up for sale by its owner Macquarie. Sources said Credit Suisse has been hired to run the auction.

Bids for the firm are expected to range from £1bn to £1.5bn, with the process believed to be at an early stage.

The company hit the headlines two weeks ago after plans for a “monstrous” incinerator near Andover, Hants, was scrapped following pressure from local protest groups. Campaigners were “over the moon” as the US-headquartered firm backtracked on the project that would have required hundreds of daily lorry trips to ferry in 500,000 tons of waste for burning each year.

Macquarie bought Wheelabrator from Energy Capital Partners in 2018 for an undisclosed amount. It operates “waste-to-energy” plants in West Yorkshire, Kent and Wales.

Bidding for Wheelabrator comes amid frenzied interest for larger peer Viridor – The Telegraph revealed South West Water owner Pennon had appointed advisers to auction its bin collection and incinerator division which might fetch more than £4bn.

KKR, one of the world’s most powerful buyout funds, attempted to hijack the process with an early-stage bid. But the Wall Street fund is facing stiff opposition from a slew of interested parties in what the City sees as one of the most sought-after infrastructure investments of the year.

The Telegraph

SNP must learn from collapse of energy firm Our Power, says Willie Rennie

Calls have been made for an inquiry into the collapse of an energy company backed by the Scottish government.

Our Power Energy Supply, which was based in Edinburgh and had 31,000 customers, had £9.8 million in loans from the government and went into administration last January. Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said that without an inquiry a public energy company planned by the SNP could repeat its mistakes.

An Our Power source had said the SNP “should have spotted the signs earlier” that the company was in difficulty and said “huge numbers of customers went unbilled”, Mr Rennie said.

Nicola Sturgeon unveiled plans for a publicly owned power company in her at to the SNP conference in October 2017, saying then that the venture would sell energy to customers at “as close to cost price as possible”. She said it would be up and running by 2021.

Mr Rennie said lessons must be learned from the situation at Our Power. “The clock is ticking to prevent a repeat of the Our Power outage,” he said.

He claimed that Our Power had “lost money from day one and racked up huge losses”.

“Ministers are still insisting that Our Power provided low-cost energy, but now it turns out that for many that actually meant free,” Mr Rennie said.

“The comments from this whistleblower reveal a chaotic company, utterly ill-equipped to tackle the task of delivering power to those most in need. Even worse, poor financial management meant that huge numbers of customers simply went unbilled.

“Without an inquiry, the SNP government risks spending serious money setting up its new energy company, not knowing whether the approach it is investing in is the right one.”

The Times

Storm Jorge disruption continues after wettest UK February on record

Flood-hit areas have experienced further disruption after Storm Jorge battered the UK with strong winds and heavy downpours.

The latest bout of extreme weather comes after the country experienced the wettest February since records began.

Data from the Met Office shows that an average of 202.1mm of rainfall fell last month, surpassing records for February 1990 when 193.4mm fell. By lunchtime on Sunday, 84 flood warnings remained in place across England, including many in east Yorkshire.

In Snaith, where residents were evacuated from their homes earlier in the week, the Environment Agency has deployed a further four pumps in addition to the 18 already installed to reduce flooding in the town.

East Riding council has urged residents living in affected areas to “remain vigilant” as the deluge continues, although there were no evacuations in the region for the first night since flooding started.

Overwhelmed flood barriers at Ironbridge in Shropshire, which also led to an emergency evacuation, were fixed on Friday, while a severe weather warning – meaning danger to life – was also downgraded.

On Sunday, the Environment Agency reported that water levels in the area were rising again and were expected to peak between 5.4 and 5.7 metres on Monday afternoon. Telford and Wrekin council said levels would hopefully be at least a metre lower than last week, while more local businesses were reopening.

On Saturday, when many yellow Met Office warnings for rain remained in place, several flooded roads were closed in Wiltshire and people were rescued from cars stranded in both Devon and Somerset.

The area surrounding the River Ouse, along which some flood warnings remained in place on Sunday, was also temporarily closed to high-sided vehicles in Humberside as winds reached up to 70mph.

In south Wales, police declared a critical incident during Britain’s fourth weekend of downpours, with Pontypridd and the Ely area of Cardiff among the worst affected areas.

Storm Jorge is the third storm to hit the UK this month, with 15 rivers in the Midlands, Yorkshire and Lancashire recording their highest levels on record this winter. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said more than 3,300 properties in England were thought to have flooded as a result of Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, which hit the country earlier in the month.

The Guardian

Vital Cop26 climate talks could be derailed by coronavirus

Concern is growing among campaigners that vital UN climate talks will be derailed by the coronavirus outbreak, while government officials are working to find ways round the problem.

This year’s UN talks on the climate are the most important since the Paris agreement in 2015, as the world is now far adrift of the Paris goals and the Cop26 summit – scheduled for Glasgow this November – is seen as one of the last chances to put nations back on track to avoid climate breakdown.

But while the talks will take place over a fortnight in November, the frantic round of global diplomacy required to reach a settlement is already under way and is being affected by the outbreak of the virus. Campaigners fear that preparations are being hampered by both the travel restrictions and the urgent demands the outbreak is putting on governments’ time and resources.

China, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, is the key player in the climate talks. As the US is withdrawing from the Paris accord, whether or not China takes on strong new commitments on carbon will help determine whether Cop26 (the conference of the parties) is a success. But with the coronavirus taking hold across the country, the climate is likely be much less of a priority.

Italy also plays a vital role in this year’s talks as the country is officially co-host of Cop26 and some key pre-meetings are planned there.

Normally, at this stage before crunch climate talks, officials and politicians from the host nation would be convening meetings in key countries.

Campaigners were already concerned that the UK had got off to a slow start, because the first Cop26 president, Claire O’Neill, was abruptly sacked, and her replacement – the business secretary, Alok Sharma – only appointed two weeks ago. The UK has still not set out a strategy or timetable for Cop26 or for its own goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Tom Burke, the co-founder of the environmental group E3G and a longtime observer of the talks, said the preparations were already being affected. For the Cop26 talks to succeed “you need to generate much more momentum, you have to have diplomacy that is much more aggressive”, he said. The coronavirus “is already having an impact and if it gets much worse, there will be a more significant impact”.

China would be distracted from the talks, predicted Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser in Bill Clinton’s White House and a strategic adviser to the Progressive Policy Institute in the US.

“The challenge for the Cop leadership is to act prudently as organisers, while also retaining appropriate attention on the climate emergency itself, which after all is likely to make infectious disease a far bigger problem in much of the world,” he said. “Should coronavirus become a full-scale pandemic, holding anything like a traditional Cop might quickly become impossible.”

Nat Keohane, a senior vice-president of the US Environmental Defense Fund, said a key meeting in Bonn, Germany, in early June could be hit, and bilateral meetings between the UK, the EU and other key players might also be affected.

However, people with experience of the talks also said the UK and the UN would take advantage of communications technology to carry on with diplomatic preparations. At the Paris talks, negotiators held regular confabs on Facebook and other forms of social media, and have active WhatsApp groups. Videoconferencing is also increasingly used.

The Cabinet Office, which is leading on Cop26 for the UK government, said: “The summit is still many months away but we’re monitoring the situation closely. Our officials are attending all planned engagements. But we are aware that this is an issue which may affect some international travel and will adapt our plans accordingly, to ensure necessary discussions and diplomacy with international partners can continue.”

The Guardian

Lidl is punished for going green as business rates on solar panels surge by 700 per cent

Lidl is being penalised with huge increases in its business rates because it installed solar panels on its stores in a push to go green.

The supermarket said its plans to invest £3million this year on the panels were being undermined by an up to 700 per cent rise in rates charged on them.

The revelations will add to the pressure on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to reform business rates in the Budget.

Lidl – which has 800 stores – was paying £689 on the solar panels on a typical shop, but that has risen 528 per cent to £4,329 a year.

The increase comes under an obscure change in 2017 in the way rates are charged on solar panels.

The German-owned discount retailer has now said its plans for more are ‘under continuous review’.

Critics say this is making a mockery of the Government’s goal of an environmentally friendly economy.

Dominic Curran, of the British Retail Consortium, said: ‘If the Government wants to help the environment and encourage investment, they should use the Budget to provide a relief that incentivises new investment. That would allow firms to make improvements… without facing a higher tax liability.’

Business rates are administered by the Valuation Office Agency, an offshoot of HMRC, which uses a formula based on the rental value of a firm’s premises.

Putting in solar panels is classed as an improvement that enhances rental value. Therefore, a higher bill is charged.

But a change in the way the rules are applied in 2017 means retailers are in certain circumstances being slapped with severe increases.

Typically, charges have gone up around 700 per cent. For instance, on a one megawatt panel the rates rose from around £4,000 to £30,000 a year.

The increase applies only to firms that own their solar panels and use the energy themselves.

If the panels are owned by another company, or if the power generated is sold to the national grid, the rate rises do not kick in.

Lidl has put panels on seven stores so far but wants to add them to 15 more a year.

They can generate nearly a third of the energy needed in one of its supermarkets, meaning a big cut in its energy bills and a benefit to the environment.

Daily Mail

Shortage of supermarket car park chargers ‘turning motorists off electric’

Only one in 20 supermarkets has electric car chargers despite concerns over the ability to replenish batteries away from the home.

Research by the RAC and Zap-Map, the charge point website, found that 608 supermarket sites had chargers in their car parks last year, and the number had doubled since 2017.

That, however, is only 5 per cent of stores, although the study pointed out that many smaller supermarkets did not have car parks, skewing the proportion.

There are concerns that a shortage of public chargers may be preventing motorists from ditching petrol and diesel cars in favour of electric vehicles. Although the majority of charging is done at home, a comprehensive public network is needed for long journeys.

Last year 37,850 pure electric cars were sold in the UK, well over double the number a year earlier. However, they made up fewer than 2 per cent of new cars and the UK is at risk of falling short of its target to end the sale of new petrol and diesel models by 2035.

Tesco had the most stores with charging facilities: 142. It had 281 chargers at these stores, with the most installed in the past two years. That meant it had charging points at less than 4 per cent of its stores, however. Asda had the biggest proportion of stores with chargers: 122 out of 633.

The RAC said it was vital that supermarkets offered customers charging facilities because shoppers often spend 45 minutes in their stores — more than enough time to top up a battery.

The Times

Ban new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, charities urge

Sales of new petrol and diesel cars should be banned by 2030 and frequent flyers should pay extra tax to help the UK to meet its climate targets, according to a coalition of 60 charities.

They also want hundreds of wind and solar farms built in the countryside and all airport expansion to be scrapped.

The charities, which include the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Women’s Institute, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Christian Aid and the Woodland Trust, have written to Boris Johnson urging him to introduce tough measures this year before a climate change summit hosted by the UK in Glasgow in November.

They say that Britain needs to set an example if other countries are to be persuaded to make serious commitments on emissions at the summit. The charities want the UK to set a stricter short-term emissions target for 2030 to drive action towards the government’s long-term, legally binding target of making the UK carbon neutral by 2050.

Last month the prime minister brought forward by five years to 2035 the date when the UK will “end the sale” of new petrol and diesel cars. Mr Johnson said the restrictions could be introduced earlier if a “faster transition is feasible”.

The charities’ letter says: “The UK must also get its own house in order. The coming months must see a green turbocharging of our decarbonisation policies and investment to maximise our emissions reductions, so that we reach net zero as soon as possible.”

It calls for all homes to be made highly energy efficient by 2030 and for £2.3 billion a year to be spent on subsidising the installation of electric heat pumps, which extract warmth from the ground or air.

The charities say that at least 10 million heat pumps should be installed in buildings by 2030 to decarbonise heating, beginning in homes off the gas grid. The UK should also end financial support for oil and gas projects abroad, they say.

The Clean Air for All campaign, launched last year by The Times, has also called for new petrol and diesel cars to be banned by 2030.

The Times

Utility Week’s weekend press round-up is a curation of articles in the national newspapers relating to the energy and water sector. The views expressed are not those of Utility Week or Faversham House