The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

British Gas Centrica

British Gas to placate price hike weary customers with ‘free electricity’ Saturdays

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

August 1, 2013 | 2 min read

British Gas has signalled its intent to make Saturdays more electrifying by offering customers free electricity during the day with the lowest power demand.

The move is intended to soothe anger over rising prices as well as ease the burden on mid-week demand, whilst cutting carbon emissions into the bargain.

The radical move is being heralded as a logical means to meet Britain’s looming energy crunch by redistributing demand rather than building a new breed of expensive power stations that may only operate for a few hours a year at times of peak demand.

It comes as Centrica, parent company of British Gas, reported a nine per cent uplift in half-year profits to reach £1.58bn owing to a cold snap over the winter.

The scheme has already been pioneered in the US, where consumers face higher mid-week bills to compensate, and would be dependent upon households installing a smart meter to automatically relay usage data.

Centrica chief exec Sam Laidlaw warned Britain faced blackouts ‘if there are further plant closures without new investment but added that the risk was ‘probably’ only for a ‘few hours a year’.

British Gas Centrica

More from British Gas

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +