Ofgem has appointed EDF Energy as the new supplier for Green Network Energy’s 360,000 domestic customers and a small number of non-domestic customers. It has appointed British Gas Evolve, a trading name of British Gas Trading Ltd, to supply Simplicity Energy’s approximately 50,000 domestic customers. This follows a competition run by Ofgem in its ‘supplier of least resort’ process.
Green Network Energy and Simplicity Energy both ceased trading on 27 January.
Outstanding credit balances, including money owed to both existing and former domestic customers of Green Network Energy and Simplicity, will be honoured. EDF will pay the outstanding £140 Warm Home Discount rebates to Green Network Energy’s 12,000 eligible customers and will make an additional contribution towards the costs of wider environmental and social obligations.
For existing customers of both failed suppliers, energy supplies will continue as normal. They switch over to EDF and British Gas Evolve on Sunday 31 January.
The regulator said new suppliers would contact customers, but:
- Green Network Energy customers can email EDF on [email protected] or call 0333 009 6993 – the call centre will be open at 8am Monday 1 February.
- Simplicity customers can email British Gas Evolve on [email protected] or call 0330 808 3880 – the call centre will be open at 9am Monday 1 February.
The tally of failed energy suppliers now stands at 18, althoughsome other struggling companies have changed hands as going concerns. Four companies failed in 2020, include Yorkshire Energy (known as Daisy Energy), Tonik Energy, Effortless Energy and Gnergy. In 2019 nine companies failed: Breeze Energy, Cardiff Energy, Toto Energy, Rutherford Energy Supply, Eversmart Energy, Solarplicity, Brilliant Energy, Our Power and Economy Energy. In 2018 there were three failures: One Select, Spark Energy Supply and Extra Energy.
Meanwhile Ofgem has confirmed that ScottishPower can claim costs of up to £10.6M to cover credit balances and some administration costs incurred when it became supplier of last resort for Extra Energy customers in 2018.
That included a claim for £2.5M in billing costs, which was questioned in responses to Ofgem’s consultation on the claim. But Ofgem said ScottishPower did not have direct access to Extra Energy’s billing platform and relied upon the arrangements put in place by the administrator with a third party billing provider, which was more expensive than regular billing costs.
The regulator also allowed £313k for cleaning up and filling gaps in the data provided to the new supplier.
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Further reading
The long read: How I helped break the power of the Big Six
UPDATED: Eversmart Energy ceases trading – Utilita takes on customers