- guardian.co.uk, Monday October 1 2007 08.58 BST
- The Guardian, Monday October 1 2007
Npower has been named as the power company doing least to help its most vulnerable customers, according to new figures on fuel poverty, which also found the company has just 1,200 customers on its reduced "social tariff".
Npower, whose German parent company RWE reported profits of €2.4bn (£1.68bn) last year on the back of rising energy prices, was singled out in a report by the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group. Scottish Power, which made £483m last year, was also rated poorly.
British Gas and EDF were the best performing of the big six power firms.
Households are deemed to be living in fuel poverty if they spend more than 10% of their income on heating and lighting bills. The industry regulator Ofgem estimates that there are now 4m households living in fuel poverty in the UK.
Currently, each power company can set the level of help it chooses to offer those customers, such as through lower prices or subsidies for loft insulation, although the government is under pressure to impose minimum standards of help. There have also been calls for the industry to stop charging a price premium to people who buy their power in advance from corner shops - usually the poorest.
The report shows a huge disparity in financial assistance being offered by the big six power firms. The industry regulator has warned that the government's target to eradicate fuel poverty by 2010 looks "increasingly challenging" given the environmental agenda, which may lead to higher energy costs in the years ahead.
In August, Ofgem examined what each company was doing to help its poorest customers. Its findings were then analysed by the fuel poverty group, which advises the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - known as Berr. The findings will make uncomfortable reading in some boardrooms.
The Berr report said npower "clearly stands out as the company that does the least for its vulnerable customers". It also criticised the company for having the highest prepayment electricity tariffs, though it noted that its gas prices, including for prepayment customers, were low.
The original Ofgem report found that npower had fewer than 1,200 of its total 6.8 million customers on its First Step social tariff - less than 0.02%. In comparison British Gas had 300,000, or 2%, of customers receiving financial help. EDF offers help to about 60,000 customers, or 1%.
The report found that Scottish Power has no form of social tariff, although it has lowered its prepayment meter rates to below its standard charges.
The findings will increase calls for government intervention. Earlier this month, the chairs of two all-party parliamentary groups called for power firms to scrap price premiums on pre-pay customers, and called on the chancellor to urgently review winter payments for old people.
A spokeswoman for npower said the views in the fuel poverty group's paper were "purely subjective".
