Billing chaos "resolved" for households - but not for businesses

Tuesday 21 June 2022

Guernsey Electricity says it has fixed problems with a new IT system which left hundreds of households facing inaccurate and excessive bills.

But some business customers continue to experience problems with bills more than a year after the new system was installed.

Guernsey Electricity installed the new system in spring 2021. It said at the time that it was "replacing the previous system which had become obsolete and unsupported...[as] part of a long-term project to improve business processes and customer service". 

But within a few weeks, Guernsey Electricity's phone lines were jammed and social media was full of complaints as households received statements which omitted vital information and appeared to overcharge customers - in some cases by hundreds of pounds - for electricity they had not consumed.

Pictured: Some customers of Guernsey Electricity have faced months of confusion over their bills following installation of a new IT system.

"Initially, there were some significant issues and it did cause frustration and concern for some of our customers," said Guernsey Electricity yesterday.

"The issues were not widespread, but during the transition period we were working across two systems that function in fundamentally different ways [and] so it has unfortunately taken time and effort to resolve.

"We have resolved the issues for our domestic customers but continue to work on some for corporate customers alongside a programme of continual improvements to the system."

Guernsey Electricity declined to answer questions from Express about when it expected the remaining problems with business customers to be resolved, how much the problems had cost to put right and whether some customers had actually been overcharged or undercharged.

Pictured: Alan Bates, Chief Executive of Guernsey Electricity. 

At the time the new system was installed, Guernsey Electricity called it "dynamic and secure" and said "the move to the new and improved system is not linked to any change in tariffs".

Yesterday, the company said: "The new enterprise resource planning system [of which customer invoicing is one part] is part of a business-wide upgrade of all our corporate systems and forms part of our future investment, supporting the energy transition and decarbonisation of the island."

Electricity customers face inflation-busting increases in tariffs from 1 July - a week on Friday - after several years during which prices went up by less than the rate of inflation.

Guernsey Electricity said that household tariffs needed to increase this year between 8% and 11% because "current levels of investment in the island’s electricity infrastructure fall well below the level needed to maintain the existing asset base and are significantly below the level required to deliver the energy transition".

Pictured: The States' Trading Supervisory Board - (l to r) Deputies Charles Parkinson, Peter Roffey and Nick Moakes - recently approved substantial real terms increases in Guernsey Electricity's tariffs from 1 July.

Deputy Gavin St Pier has been calling on the Policy & Resources Committee "to step up and take the lead - and quickly" to prevent price rises by States-owned utilities from heaping further financial pressure on family budgets already hit by rising inflation and a growing cost of living crisis.

Deputy St Pier has called on the States' senior committee, Policy & Resources, to "use the States' capital reserve to invest £10.7million as additional equity into Guernsey Electricity" to provide the company with the minimum income it says it needs over the next year to invest in the island's electricity network. 

But Deputy Peter Roffey, the President of the States' Trading Supervisory Board, which oversees Guernsey Electricity and which approved the utility's application to increase tariffs, said Deputy St Pier's idea would fail to achieve its aim of protecting household energy bills.

"Proper process has been gone through and the changes in tariffs have been approved," said Deputy Roffey.

"In the unlikely event of the Policy & Resources Committee injecting cash from the States' capital reserve into Guernsey Electricity's capital spending plans, it would not reverse the decision on tariffs, which has been made according to law. It would not lead to a freeze in tariffs."

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