Energy UK’s latest electricity switching figures show that only 94,428 customers moved to a new supplier in January – a 73% decrease compared to the equivalent period in 2021.
This is the lowest monthly figure since Energy UK started publishing these in 2013 and follows the pattern seen in the last few months of 2021 when switching numbers fell sharply. Record wholesale prices have seen a big reduction in the number of deals on offer with customers deciding to remain on price capped ‘default’ tariffs, which are currently the cheapest on the market.
Movement between larger suppliers accounted for more than 60% of the overall switching in January.
Matthew Cole, Independent Chair of Energy UK’s Energy Switch Guarantee, (a voluntary industry initiative under which signatory suppliers commit to making switching simple, and safe for customers) said:
“With high wholesale costs continuing to affect fixed term deals, we are likely to see low switching numbers for some time.
“Numbers will increase when the market recovers and it remains important that customers are protected by the Energy Switch Guarantee making the process simple, speedy and safe. We also expect that, in the future, switching decisions – and this could be to another tariff with an existing provider, or to a new supplier – will be based not just on price but will increasingly incorporate factors like good customer service, environmentally friendly tariffs and flexible deals.”
Notes to Editor
- To see the latest monthly switching stats, please visit Energy UK’s website.
- From December 2020, larger suppliers in the market are British Gas, Bulb, EDF Energy, E.ON (including npower), Octopus Energy, OVO (including domestic business of SSE) and Scottish Power. This is based on Ofgem’s revised definition of classifying all suppliers with a market share of 5% or above in either fuel as larger.
- Gemserv Limited is the service company contracted by the MRA Service Company (MRASCo) to provide services in support of the MRA including the management of its governance and providing specialised expertise to MRASCo in support of the growing electricity retail market.
- The data referenced in these reports is for electricity only. These figures include both domestic (Profile Classes 1 and 2) and non-domestic customers (Profile Classes 3-8 and 0) but do not include customers transferred to another supplier as a result of the Supplier of Last Resort process (SOLR). Also, any switches between merged parties are considered as internal and are not counted in our switching statistics.
- These figures do not include internal electricity switching. Such statistics can be found on the Ofgem website.
- The Energy Switch Guarantee (ESG) is a set of 10 commitments – launched by Energy UK in 2016 – that makes switching simple, speedy and safe. The Guarantee covers nearly 80% of the retail energy market. Find out more on the ESG website.