UK Household Energy Market-Infographic

Let us have a glance at the UK household energy market and its activities until Q3 2016. According to the report of the energy regulator Ofgem, this year has been quite eventful with 303,404 electricity switches being made by customers and out of these 140,898 switched to another supplier. Similarly, 221,175 gas switches were made, out of which 103,662 customers switched to another gas supplier.

One of the best parts to notice here is that the cheapest fixed tariff was offered by independent suppliers. The cheapest fixed tariff recorded until Q3 was £769.65 which was £21.08 cheaper than what was offered by the Big Six energy companies.

Customers made savings by choosing the method of payment for Standard Variable Tariff. When paid as Monthly Direct Debit, the average amount payable to independent suppliers was £1016 while for the Big Six companies it turned out to be £1065.97. When energy bills were paid through Standard credit method, the average amount payable remained the same for independent suppliers and the Big Six companies and it turned out to be £862.20. When customers chose to pay through the prepayment method then they paid an average amount of £1043.54 to independent suppliers and £1030.27 to the Big Six companies.

Talking about the domestic energy market share, it was found that there are 5 suppliers that offer only electricity, 2 that offer only gas and 36 that offer both gas and electricity. Find below the tabulated form of prominent energy suppliers and percentage of their market share.

Ofgem also assessed the companies based on their customer care service and gave statistics about the top performing energy companies in the realm of complaint solving. Utilita topped the chart as it was successful in resolving 85% of complains received from the customers. On the contrary, Extra Energy showed poor performance by solving only 23% of customer complains. Amongst the Big Six, SSE and EDF Energy were best at complain solving and scored 77% and 80% respectively.

Kevin Patterson