Southern Electric plc was a
public limited energy company in the United Kingdom between 1990 and 1998, when it merged with
Scottish Hydro-Electric plc to form Scottish and Southern Energy plc (now
SSE plc). The company had its origins in the southern England region of the
British nationalised electricity industry. Created in 1948 as the Southern Electricity Board, in 1990 it was
privatised
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
by being floated on the
London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pa ...
.
History
The company originated as the Southern Electricity Board, created in 1948 as part of the
nationalisation of the electricity industry by the
Electricity Act 1947. The board's assets passed in 1990 to Southern Electric plc, one of the fourteen
public electricity supplier
Public electricity suppliers (PES) were the fourteen electricity companies created in Great Britain when the electricity market in the United Kingdom was privatised following the Electricity Act 1989. The Utilities Act 2000 subsequently split ...
s, and that company was privatised in the same year. In 1998 the company merged with
Scottish Hydro-Electric plc and became part of
Scottish and Southern Energy
SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. SSE operates in the United Kingdom a ...
.
SSE used the "Southern Electric" name and logo for a time as a brand name for retail distribution of gas and electricity in the south of England, before replacing it with SSE branding. Following the purchase of SSE's retail business by
OVO Energy
OVO Energy is a major energy supplier based in Bristol, England.
It was founded by Stephen Fitzpatrick and began trading energy in September 2009, buying and selling electricity and gas to supply domestic properties throughout the UK. By Ju ...
in 2020, the Southern Electric brand is a trading name of OVO Electricity Limited.
Southern Electricity Board
The key people on the board were: Chairman Henry Nimmo (1948–54), Chairman R.R.B. Brown (1964, 1967), Deputy Chairman W.B. Poulter (1964, 1967), full-time member A. W. Bunch (1967).
The number of customers supplied by the board was:
The amount of electricity, in GWh, sold by the Southern Electricity Board over its operational life was:
Operations
The Southern Electric name continues to be used by SSE's subsidiary Southern Electric Power Distribution plc, the
distribution network operator
A distribution network operator (DNO), also known as a distribution system operator (DSO), is the operator of the electric power distribution system which delivers electricity to most end users. Each country may have many local distribution netwo ...
in the south of England.
In April 2013 the UK electricity market regulator
OFGEM
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, logo = Ofgem logo.svg
, logo_width = 124px
, logo_caption =
, seal =
, seal_width =
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fined Southern Electric £10.5 million for breaches of conduct in relation to mis-selling, from the top of the business down.
Ofgem fines SSE £10.5m for mis-selling
/ref>
See also
* Companies merged into Southern Electricity Board (SEB)
References
{{Area Electricity Board
Electric power companies of the United Kingdom
Utilities of the United Kingdom
Former nationalised industries of the United Kingdom
Companies based in Berkshire
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1990
Companies disestablished in 1998
1990 establishments in England
1998 disestablishments in England