Vattenfall investing SEK 600 million to make life easier for customers

Vattenfall investing SEK 600 million to make life easier for customers Metering and billing is to be simplified for Vattenfall's customers, and they will be provided with new electricity price products. The project that aims to do this will run from October 2002 to the end of 2005. As much as SEK 600 million will be invested in order to strengthen the position of the customers on the market. Vattenfall will implement the following measures so that it can offer simpler electricity bills to its over 900 000 customers: - Meters that can be read remotely will be installed in at least 300 000 homes and in the premises of other large private customers who will receive monthly readings, exact and accurate bills and a good overview of their electricity consumption. - Other customers will be offered easily understood and simplified bills, simpler payment routines and new price models. - The possibilities for customers to read and report their electricity consumption themselves will be improved. "Electricity customers have an unacceptable situation today. It is, for example, not reasonable that electricity customers do not always understand what they are paying for. This is why we are taking this step and investing SEK 600 million in simplifying things for the customers," says Vattenfall's President and CEO Lars G Josefsson. Hannu Kostiainen is responsible for the project. "Installing 300 000 meters in three years is a major challenge," says Hannu Kostiainen. "Once this has been done, our customers will find themselves in a much easier situation." Customers who live in flats will be offered the opportunity to choose a fixed cost per month. This means that no bills will be required as payment will be made by autogiro. It will also be easier for customers who choose this service to report their electricity consumption over the Internet or by telephone. Vattenfall has previously taken the lead in putting the customer first. A good example of this is the Disruption and Brownout Guarantee that was introduced for network customers last year. A presentation - in Swedish - will be available from 16.00 today at www.vattenfall.se Issued by Vattenfall's Press Office, telephone: +46 8 739 50 10. For more information, please contact: Karl-Erik Olsson, Press Director, Vattenfall AB, telephone +46-8-739 75 83. Vattenfall's vision is to be a leading European energy company. Vattenfall's main products are electricity and heat. Today, Vattenfall generates power and supplies energy to several million customers in the Nordic region and northern Europe. The largest electricity customers are industrial plants and energy companies. ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2002/10/23/20040817BIT22030/wkr0001.pdf