Energy companies are not transparent about their prices which is hampering competition, the Dutch consumer authority ACM said on Wednesday.

‘Consumers must be able to read and understand their energy provider’s offer,’ the ACM told the Financieele Dagblad. ‘This is currently not the case.’

The watchdog was reacting to questions from the paper about how energy prices are built up.

For instance, the market price for electricity in the Netherlands has dropped considerably, the paper says. On the spot market it costs 3.4 euro cents a kilowatt hour, around a third of its price six months ago.

However, consumers often cannot see if this drop in price has been passed on to users. Essent and Nuon publish the market price but others do not.

Shadows

‘Energy companies need to keep things in the shadows,’ Paul van Selms of the consumers collective UnitedConsumers told the FD. ‘Otherwise everyone sees where you make your profit, and consumers see that profit as coming from a too high consumer price.’

The lack of transparency in prices is the main reason Dutch consumers do not change provider.

According to ACM figures, 13.1% of consumers changed providers last year. This is a record, but a relatively small number compared to a sector such as telecoms.

The ACM is currently talking to the energy companies with a view to introducing new rules which will make tariffs more transparent for the consumer, the organisation told the paper.