Scottish & Southern gears up for head-on contest with British Gas

Utility provider Scottish & Southern Energy is gearing up to take on rival British Gas with a £1.5m campaign to back up the UK-wide extension of its home maintenance service, Shield. A campaign is expected to launch this summer.

The campaign, which has been created by Scottish agency Pravda, aims to raise awareness of the service as it becomes available UK-wide. It has only been available in Scotland since its launch there last year.

SSE is Scotland’s largest utility company with more than 7 million customers. It says it has signed up 200,000 customers since its launch. According to an SSE spokesman, the decision to extend the service UK-wide is a result of it reaching “critical mass”.

Home maintenance services are a growing area in the utility sector having become an increasingly lucrative sector for revenue growth following the downward pressure on prices this year after customers endured large price hikes last year.

SSE has been the subject of much speculation this year, as consolidation in the utility sector continues.

Earlier this year SSE was reported to be the subject of a takeover target for German utility company Eon. This week it was linked to Russian gas company Gazprom. However, on Tuesday this week Gazprom executives stated that SSE was not a takeover target “for now”.