30th May 2014 11:16
LONDON (Alliance News) - UK energy supplier SSE PLC Friday said it has made a payment of GBP750,000 to the Scottish Hydro Electricity Community Trust after the UK energy regulator Ofgem imposed the fine for providing too slow grid connections to around 200 customers between 2010 and 2013.
The regulator said on Friday that SSE's power distribution subsidiary did not provide the customers with an offer to connect to the electricity network within its prescribed timescale, and so the company was forced to pay out the cash in order to help customers with the cost of electricity connections in rural areas of the UK.
"As part of their licence conditions, electricity distribution companies have a maximum of three months to make connection offers to customers and must have the appropriate resources in place to deliver their work," Ofgem said in a statement.
SSE was fined GBP500,000 for the same offence in 2011 and said at the time that it was putting in place a programme to avoid the same situation happening again, which is why Friday's fine was slightly higher.
?Today?s announcement sends a clear message to electricity distribution companies that they must help customers to connect to their network in a timely and efficient manner," Ofgem Senior Partner with responsibility for enforcement Sarah Harrison said in a statement.
SSE said on Friday that as soon as it became aware of the issues as part of its routine reporting process in May 2013, it investigated and found a technical system error which led to a small amount of customers receiving connection offers later than the required timeframe.
?We were extremely disappointed to discover this issue with our systems last year that impacted on the service we provided to our customers. We quickly contacted all the customers affected and, although no customer was impacted negatively, we made individual payments of up to GBP1000," SSE Power Distribution's Managing Director for Networks Mark Mathieson said in a statement.
"I would like to thank these customers once again for their understanding of the situation. We fully accept that we breached our licence obligation and have put in place measures to ensure the problem will not recur," Mathieson added.
SSE shares were up 0.3% to 1,557.27 pence on Friday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
SSE