Big Six Energy Suppliers Improve Billing Performance

Large energy suppliers continue to improve in providing accurate bills to their millions of customers, according to an audit of signatories to Energy UK’s Billing Code.

EDF, British Gas, and E.ON all earned Gold awards for their billing performance in 2018, meaning they are fully compliant with the stringent requirements of the Billing Code. The previous year just one supplier, EDF, earned the highest commendation.

The Billing Code was established in 2006 by Energy UK to give energy customers greater confidence in the accuracy of their energy bills and to promote improved billing standards and performance in the industry.

It’s a voluntary scheme, to which the UK’s six largest energy suppliers have signed up. Those suppliers are assessed annually in their performance in four key areas: switching, meter reading, energy bills and statements, and payments and refunds.

Among their commitments are to provide customers with the information they need during the switching process; to obtain meter readings regularly, at least once every two years; to send energy bills in simple formats that customers can understand; to check unusually high or low bills before they issued; to offer a range of payment options; and to refund customers promptly, among others.

For their performance against these metrics, nPower and Scottish Power were rated Silver, indicating they had met most criteria. SSE was given Bronze.

The audit into their billing practices was conducted by PwC and the results published by Energy UK.

Tina Tietjen, Independent Chair of the Billing Code, said: “It’s great to see Billing Code members maintaining or improving their performance against the stringent criteria of the audit process with three suppliers achieving the highest gold standard.”

“Clear, accurate and up to date billing is obviously important for customers so today’s results are very encouraging.  I look forward to seeing Billing Code members build on this performance and improve standards still further.”