Switching Energy suppliers

A record number of people switched their energy supplier in 2018, making their bills cheaper.

  •  · Thanks to the actions of the Conservative-led coalition government to open the market, there are now five times as many energy suppliers as there were in 2010, giving consumers more choice and allowing them to shop around for a better deal. We are correcting Labour’s mistakes where people were stuck paying more with providers that didn’t work for them. 
  • · We are delivering on our commitment to make sure the energy market works for everyone, helping people with the cost of living. 


Recent statistics:
  • 2018 was a record year for switching energy provider, meaning more people benefited from a better deal. Over 5.8 million, or one in five, customers made a change (Energy UK, 21 January 2019). 
  • In December alone, nearly half a million customers switched supplier, giving people more choice to shop around for a better deal, helping people with the cost of living. In December 2018, 464,378 customers switched supplier, up 10 per cent on December 2017 (Energy UK, 21 January 2019). 
  • 1.7 million customers moved to small and mid-sized suppliers in 2018, rather than one of the Big Six firms. Around 30 per cent of those who switched moved to a small supplier, and a survey by Which? found that all of the top 10 suppliers for customer satisfaction are now challenger firms (Daily Mirror, 21 January 2019). 

We are encouraging people to switch by:
  • Making it easier for new companies to enter the energy market, so there’s more choice for consumers. There are now over 60 domestic energy suppliers in the market, up from 13 in 2010 (Hansard, 15 January 2019). 
  • Making it easier for people to get better deals. Rival suppliers can contact people stuck on default tariffs for more than three years to offer cheaper and easy-to-access deals based on their actual energy usage (CMA, Press Release, 24 June 2016). 
  • Reducing the time it takes to switch supplier, making it easier for people looking to switch for a better deal. Working with the industry, we have halved switching times to 17 days to make sure that consumers can get their new deal as quickly as possible (DECC, 12 February 2016). 

We are also saving people money on their energy bills by:
  • Introducing a cap on energy tariffs and ending rip-off energy prices for millions of families. Around 11 million households who have stayed loyal to energy suppliers will now pay a fair price thanks to our price cap (BEIS, Press release, 1 January 2019). 
  • Offering every household and business a smart meter by 2020, saving customers £300 million a year. This will allow us to use energy more efficiently and avoid expensive peaks. As a result of smart meter roll-out, across all households, energy bills are projected to be £300 million lower in 2020 than they would have been without smart meters (Hansard, 8 February 2017). 

We are decarbonising our energy system:
  • 2018 was the cleanest and greenest year ever for electricity in the UK. 2018 was the greenest year to date for electricity generation, with renewable sources supplying a record 33 per cent of electricity in 2018, up from 29 per cent in 2017, and up from 6.7 per cent in 2009. 
  • Britain was powered for more than 1,000 hours without coal in 2018 – a first since the industrial revolution (The Guardian, 3 January 2019, link; The Guardian, 13 July 2018). 
  • Reducing emissions faster than any other G20 country. A study by PwC found that the UK has decarbonised faster than any other G20 country, reducing emissions by 29 per cent in the last decade alone, while continuing to grow our economy (PwC, "UK and China leading on low carbon transition but global emissions are still rising," 4 October 2018). 

It’s not just energy where we’ve made it easier to switch:
  • Making it safer and easier for people to switch bank accounts. Almost 1 million people used our Current Account Switch Service to change banks between October 2017 and September 2018 (BACS, Current Account Switch Service Dashboard, 24 October 2018). 
  • Opening the world’s biggest competitive water market, giving 1.2 million businesses the chance to choose their water provider. Since we introduced the reform, more than 120,000 businesses have engaged with the new business retail water market (Ofwat, Press release, accessed 28 November 2018)

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