We carried out a price control review of Power NI, which we published in November 2016. Following a public consultation we identified a key change in our price control review decision. Since Power NI are no longer dominant in the business electricity market and following comments from our public consultation we decided to remove price regulation from business electricity customers from 1 April 2017. After our decision Power NI has written to all affected customers to make them aware of the change. While things will change for business electricity customers, price regulation will continue to apply to domestic electricity customers.
For business electricity customers the removal of price regulation will provide an opportunity to shop around to get the best deal from their electricity supplier. There are currently eight suppliers providing tariffs to business electricity customers in Northern Ireland. A list of business electricity suppliers and their contact details is available.
While we will no longer regulate prices for business electricity customers we will continue to monitor the market to make sure that all consumers are protected. All consumers will continue be covered by a series of existing regulatory protection measures. We also intend to take steps during 2017-18 to assess whether there is a need for enhanced non-price control protection measures for business electricity customers. Should customers have any concerns about their electricity supplier, arrangements are in place to allow them to raise these.