Households in the UK should expect more energy price rises in the future according to SSE, who are one of the main Energy providers in the UK. The irony is that SSE has revealed that its profits have rocketed at family’s expense.
The energy company’s retail sector profits climbed 28 per cent to £410million partly due to its 9 per cent price hike in October 2012. What baffles customers is how the energy companies can plead poverty and raise their bills sharply and then announce such huge profits.
The company made £1.4billion over all in pre-tax profits last year, and still feels the need to announce that it is likely that more price rises are “highly likely”, blaming the need for them on wholesale prices and other costs.
The massive price hikes combined with the extreme winter the UK faced, a lot more households have been feeling the pinch, with many borrowing money from friends, family or even short term lenders. Some who couldn’t source extra money just shut off their heating and wrapped up.
Anne Robinson, from uSwitch.com said that: ‘These profits will be seen as a smoking gun, making it difficult for any supplier to justify last winter’s price hikes and the pressure they have placed on consumers. ‘
‘People have been going cold for fear of the cost of turning their heating on – in these circumstances a price cut or a price freeze is the only suitable peace offering and would go some way to helping and reassuring consumers.’
SSE said that its staggering profits are at a reasonable and sustainable level and is comparative to organisations in other markets. It also said that it is going to try to ‘resist this trend of higher costs for as long as possible to shield customers from the unwelcome impact of higher prices’.
The company lost over 80,000 customers last year, many because of the miss-selling scandal that plagued SSE. The company was fined over £10million because of it.