Attitudes towards the liberalisation of competition and increased market conditions in energy production and distribution were also studied. In this issue, the changes in attitudes were the most significant.

The argument: ‘Electricity should be in Finland an ordinary commercial article, and decisions about the production, pricing and sales of this article should be made independently on the market’ is accepted by more people than before (now 61%, last year 53%, no figure). A counterargument to the above argument: ‘Although free competition in the business life is a good thing as such, it suits badly to the energy sector, which should continue to be unambiguously controlled and supervised by society’ received a logically compatible, reversed response. The portion of persons longing for strict official control has decreased and the portion of those opposing it has increased (the latter from 31% to 43%; no figure).

Even though the changes in the market have been observed, and somehow accepted, too, there are no signs of people taking advantage it. The results of citizens’ activities in this field indicate that their involvement is on the level of observing the situation. This is shown by three new meters studying the behaviour and way of thinking of consumers [figure 22.].

In practice, two thirds (66%) consider the price of electricity as the only basis on which the consumers select their power supplier on the deregulated electricity market. The superior weight of price over environmental and other criteria was clear also when comparing specific motives for subjecting suppliers to tendering [Study of environmental classification of electricity, 1998, Finergy/Yhdyskuntatutkimus Oy].

Indifference towards the deregulated market is also reflected by the fact that only less than a third (29%) of the respondents say that they have asked electricity companies for tenders or in any way found out about the differences between their offering. Therefore, the number of those who indicate that they have changed their electricity supplier (6%) is quite marginal. In addition to those who actually changed their suppliers, this figure probably contains also those whose supplier has seemingly changed – it may not have been easy for citizens to keep track of changes in ownership and other restructuring measures in the energy sector.