Simply Energy Confirms Market Settlement

Press Release

Simply Energy Confirms Market Settlement

Wellington, 25 August 2010 –On Friday 19 August 2010, the New Zealand Electricity Market Clearing Manager announced a participant default. There have been subsequent formal complaints to the Clearing Manager by two of the major generators of the impact of this default by a small retailer.

Murray Dyer, Commercial Director of niche electricity retailer, Simply Energy stated: “The default by this participant has the potential to cast dispersion on all of the new entrant and specialist retailers that are playing a very important role in this market in creating competition and innovation.

“We feel it is important to register for the record that Simply Energy was not the party that defaulted on Friday; and that we have a record of making full market settlements since our inception in 2005.

“Last Friday, due to the default of another participant, Simply Energy also had generation funds held back by the Clearing Manager, the same issue faced by all of the major generators.”

Set up by returning international industry experts, Simply Energy has developed a very different business model to the mass market retailers and the new entrant retailers pursuing mass market. The business works with independent generators to develop and manage energy supply solutions and then matches this supply to a targeted base of commercial customers throughout New Zealand.

The focus for the company is on developing strong, long term relationships for generation, retail and network services, as opposed to simply signing up large quantities of mass market electricity customers.

The key differentiators are;
• Simply Energy does not take a trading position
• Simply Energy provides wholesale market solutions with all generation and supply transactions back-to-back to mitigate trading risk
• Simply Energy’s supply customers are required to lodge prudential facilities to mitigate Simply Energy’s and our client’s credit risk

Murray concluded: “Simply Energy is a profitable robust business that is focused on developing bespoke solutions as a generation – retail services provider, which mitigates our risk of default. We would request that the NZX completes their investigation in a timely manner and makes an appropriate announcement about the defaulting party to provide transparency to the market. ”

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