In the U.K. market, GDF SUEZ Energy UK said that it, "has become the first energy supplier to offer a best market price guarantee to its customers."

"No other energy supplier offers its customers the best screen price across four trading platforms, providing complete transparency and assuring customers of the best market-reflective price available every time they make a purchase," GDF SUEZ said.

From a news release, it was not exactly clear how the Best Price guarantee works, or what it is benchmarked against.

However, it got us thinking about why such an offer has not been tried, to our knowledge, in the U.S. retail energy markets.

Best price or price-matching is common in retail sales, particularly appliance or other large purchases, and is something that is familiar to customers and also a way to show value and drive confidence in the sales process.

There are variations of this, to be sure, that exist currently in the retail market, but nothing as holistic as the price guarantees offered in other industries.

Guaranteed rates below default service are obviously common, but these only guarantee a price against a single rate, and do not offer the customer value versus the dozens of other competitor rates available. In the post-Price to Beat era in Texas, we have seen some REPs offer rates guaranteed to be below the standard offering of the large REPs (typically the former AREP), but again, this only guarantees value against a single competitor.

In the plains gas choice markets, Vista Energy has offered to beat a competitor's quote, or would pay the customer $25, but this still doesn't guarantee the best rate (as Vista may elect to pass on serving the customer, and pay the $25).

We understand there are various challenges to offering a best-price guarantee. Key among these is transparency of competitors' pricing (particularly among niche companies), making it hard for suppliers to know exactly what risk they would take on in making a best price guarantee.

To a lesser extent, the longer a best price guarantee lasts, the harder it will be to offer, given movements in market pricing that could make substantially lower rates viable. Still, we understand that in other industries, best price matches may apply only at the time of sale, or can be as short as for one month, which is still a long time that could see significant price movement, but isn't as risky as offering a best rate for the entire period of a fixed contract.

Given the skepticism facing the retail market in the wake of the polar vortex, we think a true best price guarantee (not just versus default service) would ameliorate some of the distrust against retail suppliers.

See More: News Release: GDF SUEZ Energy UK Introduces Next Generation Of Flexible Contracts With Unique Best Price Guarantee