Scottish & Southern May Sell Services in Northern Ireland

Households in Northern Ireland may get some competition in the electricity supply market.  The industry regulator is set to approve the launch of Scottish & Southern, the UK’s second largest energy company in the country.

Scottish & Southern Energy has not made public when it would begin signing up domestic customers, or when it hoped to start supplies. However, the company applied in August last year for a licence to supply Northern Ireland.  The company also applied to the Irish regulator to supply the rest of Ireland.

Greg Irwin, a spokesman for the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation, confirmed that it supported the issuing of a licence to Scottish & Southern Energy.  He added that formal approval could only be made after legal consultation ended on 19 February. A final decision on a supply licence would be taken “as soon as possible” after this, he stated.  He said it was “a commercial decision” for Scottish & Southern to decide when to start selling its service.

At the present time, electricity supplies to domestic customers are dominated by the former state-owned NIE Energy, now part of the Viridian Group.  Three other companies – PGV, Regent and Quinn Energy – have licences to supply electricity to domestic customers, but none has begun to do so.

Liberalisation of the Northern Irish electricity market is taking place in stages.  Several companies – including E.ON and Airtricity, which Scottish & Southern is buying – hold licences to supply business customers. A single electricity market was created last year.  This means that suppliers in both the north and south of Ireland can source electricity from either side of the border. An inter-connector with Scotland has proved important in stabilising the wholesale market.

www.scottish-southern.co.uk