In June 2014 Ofgem played its trump card. At the time, the flames of public outrage over energy company profits had been stoked by political manoeuvrings from the opposition party. Headlines bayed for a break up of the big six while the Labour Party pledged a massive intervention if the regulator could not get the market in hand.
By referring the entire energy sector to the highest competition authority in the land, Ofgem proved it was ready to play tough: both against a wayward industry and the politicians who claimed the regulator was too spineless to bite back.
But has it backfired?
Far from a damning indictment of the big six, the first clues from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as to the direction of travel seem decidedly focused on the regulator itself.
Ofgem called on the CMA to look into the key areas of discontent in energy competition: an impenetrable wholesale electricity market; the unfair advantage held by the vertically integrated incumbents; and a retail market distorted by loss-leading tariffs and sticky customers.
The CMA has duly included all of the above in its “theories of harm”. But while its early work has shown that the big six might be less culpable than they seemed a year ago, the regulator is emerging as a more consistent area of interest.
Only two of the CMA’s theories of harm have undergone a significant overhaul from those set out last year. The first theory – regarding the “broken” wholesale market – has shifted its focus from the perceived lack of liquidity and access, to the role regulatory frameworks themselves may play in distorting the market.
The CMA says it will alter its investigation to include a probe into whether imbalance price reforms overcompensate generators in light of the capacity market, and into the absence of locational pricing of constraints and losses, which “may distort competition”.
On the other side of the supply stream, the CMA included a fifth theory of harm to its original four to build out its investigation into the notoriously uncompetitive retail market.
Unsurprisingly, the national news agenda focused on the CMA findings that customers could have saved between £158-234 a year by switching from a standard variable tariff, although more worrying is that so few customers seem willing to lay claim to those savings.
The big six will have questions to answer over the “rocket and feather” tendency of prices to rise quicker than they fall, but the CMA’s initial findings reveal that the regulatory codes put in place by Ofgem may have helped to stifle competition in the first place.
“Several parties have submitted to us that elements of the codes system risk affecting competition either through distorting incentives, increasing barriers to entry or stifling innovation,” the CMA report said.
The CMA says it will investigate first whether Ofgem’s electricity regulation codes pose a barrier to entry, and second whether they stifle pro-competitive innovation and change.
“It is not the big six, with the candlestick, in the kitchen,” analysts at Investec noted following the CMA’s report. “Regulatory interventions in the UK retail energy supply market have risen in recent years. We are unsurprised the CMA has identified ‘several aspects of the regulatory regime’ that may have a potential impact on competition between suppliers,” Investec said.
“We note that, at least in some key areas, arguments that the big six have been making for some time seem to have been accepted,” the analysts added.
The CMA’s initial view is that the evidence does not suggest the big six have earned excessive profits from their generation businesses, nor does the evidence suggest any actual or tacit “co-ordination” between them. Add to that the fact that the CMA does not, at present, see evidence that vertical integration disadvantages independents, and much of the heightened speculation over a big six break-up looks a little deflated.
The political threat to the regulator, on the other hand, may just be gaining traction.