Partner Article

Explain puts spark into research

The company responsible for delivering electricity to 3.8 million businesses and consumers across the North East has joined forces with Newcastle-based Explain to discover where its customers want to see improvements to their electricity network between 2010 and 2015.

CE Electric UK is one of several distribution network operators (DNOs), which take electricity from the National Grid and deliver it to consumers via energy supply companies. The company covers an area of 25,000 square kilometres from Northern Lincolnshire to the Scottish Borders.

Its prices are set by regulator OFGEM on a five-year rolling basis, and CE Electric has commissioned Explain to engage with customers to canvas their views on how the company fulfils its obligations and find out what improvements they would like to see, before an upcoming pricing review.

Explain’s Research Director, Kim Davis said: “CE Electric is a huge company, yet very few people are aware of what a DNO does and the service it provides. Whilst we have seen electricity bills spiral, the charge for the distribution of electricity only makes up around 17% of a typical domestic annual electricity bill, and is determined for five year periods where it cannot be altered.

“Our brief was to gather and analyse information on where service improvements should be made and how to prioritise the investment in line with customer demands. The findings from the research will feed into CE Electric’s proposal put forward to OFGEM at the beginning of 2009.”

Jon Bird, head of sustainability at CE Electric, said: “In order to meet OFGEM’s requirements, we needed to gauge the thoughts and opinions of our customers and stakeholders, to find out how they would like us to operate and where we can look at improving our services. With Explain’s help, we have gathered an extensive range of views as well as some invaluable insights from our customers, all of which will go to assist us in making our proposals to OFGEM.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .