Energy supplier switching saw a significant increase in July due to widely reported forecasts of the next default tariff price cap coupled with the availability of fixed tariffs from several suppliers. There were 123,000 switches completed in July – 28 percent more than June 2022.

Households and SMEs appear to be hedging their bets against a future default tariff price cap rise and locking in more certain fixed prices to keep spending under control. The latest forecast from Cornwall Insight suggests the average household will pay over £3,500 per year for energy under Ofgem’s revised October price cap being announced tomorrow, 26 August.

In previous years, warnings and news coverage of energy price spikes have resulted in considerable upticks in switches from variable tariff to fixed tariff offers. However, with so few suppliers now operating and able to offer reasonable deals, end users are severely limited in their ability to control their exposure to price changes.

July’s figure is this year’s second highest monthly number of changes of supplier (CoS) completed after April 2022 which saw 128,000 CoS completed due to typical contract completion trends.

The year’s current total for switches completed now stands at 736,000 compared to 3.4mn for the same period in 2021.

In terms of switching types, Other suppliers saw the greatest proportional gains rate from the Large category, while Other-Other switches are the only type which decreased compared to the month before.

  • Large to Large switches reached 58,000 – 16 percent more than June 2022 and 47 percent of July 2022’s total CoS completed,
  • Large to Other switches reached 33,000 – 57 percent less than June 2022 and 27 percent of July 2022’s total CoS completed,
  • Other to Large switches landed at 23,000 – 51 percent more than June 2022 and 19 percent of July 2022’s total CoS completed,
  • And Other to Other switches hit 9,000 – 11 percent less than June 2022 and 7 percent of July 2022’s total CoS completed.

For more information on CoS figures, or to find out how your organisation can access the CoS data we hold and provide for the energy market, contact [email protected].

—————————————————————————————————————————

NOTES:

The above figures relate to electricity CoS in Great Britain only.

We do not include CoS from SoLR processes or trade sales in our monthly CoS reporting. We account for only voluntary switches, or instances where the customer made an active decision and took action to change supplier.

CoS started refers to the number of valid switches started, also known as CoS raised.

All data is provided by EMPRIS.

Due to the introduction of the Central Switching Service in July 2022, ElectraLink is no longer able to provide data on switches started or forecasts for how many switches will complete.

ElectraLink has been granted the governance protections to hold, transfer and analyse CoS and other data.