March’s electricity switching figures, published today by Energy UK, confirm that the number of customers changing providers remains low.
108,164 customers switched supplier during March, which is a 83% fall compared to the same month last year, but a small increase on February’s figure (96,242).
This continues the pattern seen over recent months as record wholesale prices have reduced the amount of competitive deals available to customers, resulting in a large number of customers remaining on price capped ‘default’ tariffs as the cheapest option at present.
As seen in previous months, most of the switches were completed between large suppliers, making up 57% of the total in March.
Matt Cole, the Independent Chair of Energy UK’s Energy Switch Guarantee said:
“Switching numbers remain subdued – as will most likely be the case for the foreseeable future – although it’s still important that those customers who want to switch suppliers can do so quickly and easily.
“Switching – either to another provider or to another deal with your existing supplier – will also play an important role when the market recovers which is why we are looking at how the Energy Switch Guarantee can best continue to support customers in future.”
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, 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.
- 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.