BUZZ- ScottishPower third-quarter customer numbers drop by 120,000

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Iberdrola (Amsterdam: ID6.AS - news) -owned ScottishPower lost 120,000 customers in the third quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, the Spanish energy group's results showed on Tuesday. ** ScottishPower customer numbers fell to 5.22 million in the third quarter, from 5.34 million in the same period of 2016. ** Britain's big six energy companies, which also include Centrica (Frankfurt: A0DK6K - news) , SSE (LSE: SSE.L - news) , E.ON, EDF (Paris: FR0010242511 - news) and Innogy's Npower, are all under pressure from smaller rivals that offer cheaper deals and now control about 20 percent of the market, up from less than 1 percent a decade ago. ** The government has asked Britain's energy regulator Ofgem to impose a price cap on the most widely used tariffs. ** The price cap "will be bad for consumers, energy companies big and small, as well as investor confidence" said ScottishPower's Chief Corporate Officer, Keith Anderson. ** Onshore wind power produced by the company in the third quarter was up 37 percent year on year. ** ScottishPower Renewables has 2 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity in Britain. (Reporting By Susanna Twidale; Editing by David Goodman)