More than half of complaints were about electricity

Energywatch said a rise in billing, transfer and direct selling problems had boosted the number of complaints to 110,000 in the year to April 2003.

The figure was almost 20,000 up on the year before.

While many complaints were from domestic customers, it was very concerned about a "significant increase" in complaints from business users.

Consumer concern

Complaints about electricity supplies attracted the biggest proportion of complaints.

We remain deeply concerned about the scale of the problems consumers face when dealing with their energy companies Ann Robinson, Energywatch

Of the people contacting Energywatch, 56% were unhappy with their electricity company, while only 31% of complaints concerned gas companies.

For domestic consumers, the most common problems were with accounting and billing, totalling 44% of the gripes overall.

Close behind in the shame list were complaints about transfers at 37% of the total, whilst direct selling issues accounted for 14% of complaints.

The consumer watchdog says it is getting more and more complaints from business users, 10,000 of which got in touch in the year to April.

Of these, half concerned accounts and billing and 31% were about the transfer process.

Ann Robinson, Chair of Energywatch, said: "We remain deeply concerned about the scale of the problems consumers face when dealing with their energy companies.

"We have witnessed a significant increase in account, billing and transfer complaints.