Bulb Energy Goes Bust Hitting its 1.7 Million UK Customers

Bulb Energy, one of the UK’s largest energy suppliers, has gone bust.

The company has 1.7 million customers, making it by far the largest energy company to fail so far as wholesale gas prices and utility bills soar.

Bulb’s customers will not be taken on by other providers because of the size of its operation, making it unsuitable for the “supplier of last resort” arrangement used when two dozen smaller providers failed over the past three months.

Instead, its existing customers will continue to be served while the company goes into  special administration in a plan put together by regulator Ofgem over the weekend – this is the first time that provision from the 2011 Energy Act has been used

Bulb Energy goes into special administration

“We’ve decided to support Bulb being placed into special administration, which means it will continue to operate with no interruption of service or supply to members,” said the company on Monday.

“If you’re a Bulb member, please don’t worry as your energy supply is secure and all credit balances are protected,” the statement continued.

Bulb Energy’s failure has been long predicted. Now industry watchers will be asking who is next?

So far around two million consumer customers of gas suppliers have been affected by the business failures in the sector.

There is global pressure on gas supplies and prices, made worse in Europe by its heavy reliance on Russia.

Added to that, the UK has the least storage capacity of any major European country, which means it is even more difficult to manage supplies during times of market stress such as the present.

Smaller UK providers have failed to hedge their purchases or to lock in lower forward prices, which means the regulators price cap on how much they can charge consumers means many are trading at a loss when forced to buy at current prices which are far above the cap.