Island-wide concerns about monthly costs as winter approaches were evident as hundreds of people once again flocked to St Pierre Park Hotel for the return of the company’s educational and engaging event.
Following the surprising response from last year’s launch, which welcomed 258 people through the hotel’s doors, Guernsey Electricity teamed up with more local partners and charities to bring a bigger community show this year – aimed at helping people reduce their power usage.
‘It’s not just about your bills,’ said Steven Parks, head of customer experience, who led the event for Guernsey Electricity.
‘It extends right across all your incomings and outgoings and we wanted to show that in a really engaging way.’
Staff were on hand to answer questions and offer energy-saving tips and advice.
They held a live demonstration, showing how energy travels from cable to meter, and delivered informative presentations.
With energy-saving games, educational workshops and interactive activities, the show was abuzz with energy.
Mr Parks said the company understood that people are struggling, and is keen to try to help people save where they can. It meets with local charities, including Citizens Advice, Age Concern and Guernsey Welfare Service to learn more about their shared customers and help develop its customer support forum.
He said it currently supports around 2,000 of its 30,000 customers and that that figure is always increasing.
‘We’ve got to continuously keep looking at what we can do – building trust is key,’ he said.
‘This year we produced a whole brand new package of support for vulnerable customers.
‘Our fantastic staff do an amazing job and we want to encourage people to pick up the phone and speak to them.’
The utility raised electricity prices by 8% in July, in part to meet the rising costs of import and generation after long-term importation deals expired.
Mr Parks said although he cannot rule out future price rises, there are none planned for the rest of this year.
‘Our tariffs haven’t risen in a decade, and inflation is still high,’ he said.
‘Over that 10 years we were forced to borrow day-to-day spending and that money has to be paid back.
‘Our capital investment programme is £12m. a year that we are currently investing into our assets.
‘We’ve got about 1.5m. metres of cable underground – some of it dates back to World War Two, so we can’t rule out future price rises.
‘Our tariffs haven’t changed in 20 years and we’ve got to reform them. So a huge element of today is trying to manage our peak demands.
‘If we can suppress the demand, we can reduce and limit the millions of pounds that we have to invest in our network.
‘We hope to educate customers in ways they can use their energy in the right way, at the right times.
‘Next year, we’re looking at the next generation of smart meters and dynamic pricing, so we also want to hear their views and thoughts to get as much feedback as early as we can.’
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