by Brendan Coyne
Co-operative Energy could double its customer base after bidding a bespoke fixed-price tariff in the Which? Big Switch.
Existing customers will also be offered the new deal, and business development manager Nigel Mason claimed the company had been planning a fixed-price tariff for “some time”. However, he admitted that launching a tariff that would not be available to the general public was “a dilemma”, given that the Co-op’s sales proposition had been a single product.
The firm made an aggressive opening bid – £1,048 fixed for a year for the average user – which it will make available to 20,000 of the 285,000 people that signed up to the collective switching exercise. Co-op’s variable tariff will also be available on a first come, first served basis for 10,000 people. The remaining 255,000 people that signed up will be offered EDF’s Blue+Price Promise tariff.
Which? said Eon, First Utility and Scottish Power also signed up to take part in the reverse auction, although it is not clear if any of those firms actually made a bid.
First Utility definitely did not. Instead, the firm launched a fixed deal that undercut Co-op’s exclusive tariff by £1. Chief financial officer Darren Braham told Utility Week that the risk of holding open the tariff for three weeks, as required by Which?, was too great. He said the new deal would remain open to the entire market “as long as wholesale prices stayed still”.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 18 May 2012.
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