1.9 million homes lose supplier as UK faces 'tsunami' of collapses
About 2 million households in the UK have lost their supplier this year, as another two energy companies went bust, the government regulator says.
The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) confirmed that Avro Energy, which supplied gas and electricity to about 580,000 households, and Green, which had more than 250,000 customers, have exited the energy market.
The collapses come in the wake of the buckling of seven other suppliers under the pressure of record gas market prices over six weeks. Their customers encompassed 1.5 million households.
Ofgem's Neil Lawrence said it was “a worrying time for many people” but called on households to wait for a new supplier to be appointed before trying to switch energy deals.
Newcastle-based energy supplier Green collapsed just days after warning it was among the suppliers facing the threat of going bust if the government refused to provide any support.
“I don’t think we’ll survive the winter if there’s not a material change,” said Peter McGirr, the chief executive at the startup, before his company dropped out of the energy market.
After the company’s collapse, he warned that there would be a “tsunami of more [collapses] to come” because many providers do not have enough money to survive rising costs without passing them on to their customers.
He also complained that smaller suppliers, which are the most vulnerable to the energy market shock, are ignored by the government and his company’s calls for help from the industry regulator had “fallen on deaf ears”.
Gillian Cooper, the head of energy at Citizens Advice, said the latest setbacks would “add to people’s worries at what’s already an extremely unsettling time.”
“Supplier collapses and rocketing energy prices, combined with the looming cut to universal credit, are creating huge amounts of uncertainty for millions of people.”
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