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Npower joins price-cut war

19/02/2007

UK energy supplier npower is to cut its gas and electricity prices in a bid to increase its market-share in the fiercely competitive utilities sector.

The RWE-owned supplier has cut its gas prices by 16 per cent and reduced electricity prices by two to three per cent relative to a customer's location.

The move comes after Powergen and British Gas (BG) pledged to force down prices given the fall-off in wholesale prices.

Kevin Miles, npower's residential managing director, said that npower had "provided more protection for its customers during a time of record wholesale prices".

"Today's announcement confirms npower's commitment to offer value to our customers."

But independent gas and electricity watchdog Energywatch said npower's play may not be enough to satisfy customers.

Graham Kerr of Energywatch pointed out that npower customers would have to wait until May for bills to come down, saying that the announcement was "little more than a distant promise of cheaper gas". He added that the "negligible cut" in electricity price "smacked of tokenism".

His comments were echoed by Karen Darby, chief executive of switching service SimplySwitch.com, who said that "while these price reductions are welcome, as wholesale prices have halved in recent months, we would like to have seen a bigger cut, with immediate effect".

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