Member Article

Northern Powergrid delivers as Ofgem turns up the heat

The Yorkshire division of the Northern Powergrid has delivered a ‘satisfactory’ performance for 2014, as Ofgem continues to put pressure on the supplier to cut customer costs.

The regulator has set targets for the quality of the electricity supply provided to Northern Powergrid’s customers and the company has continued to focus on reducing the average times taken to restore supplies following a power cut.

Having again delivered its largest ever capital expenditure programme of £243.1m in 2013, the company continued with its policy of investing efficiently in its electricity distribution network during 2014.

Northern Powergrid reported pre-tax profits of £1.9m, up from £1.6m in 2013. The company also saw revenues jump to £4.3m from £3.9m in the previous year.

In a statement, the company said customer service remains a high priority: “During the year, the company distributed electricity to customers in its distribution services area and continued to improve the overall performance of the distribution network through an investment strategy targeted at delivering improvements in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

“The company remains focused on delivering a reliable and dependable supply of electricity and a high standard of service to its customers.

“Customer service improvements are a priority for the company, which is consistently ranked in the lower half of Ofgem’s customer service league tables.

“The company has a long-term goal to improve this ranking and has a programme of actions in place to support this improvement.”

Northern Powergrid has identified “hot spots” of particularly poor network performance and has started to invest in improving the reliability of ‘under-performing’ parts of the distribution network

The company said: “In the customer service support areas, further investment is being directed toward information technology to improve contact with customers, provide quicker and more accurate information to customers and allow customers to communicate with the company in a range of accessible and easy ways.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .