Octopus Power has turn into Britain’s largest family power provider for the primary time, toppling British Gasoline nearly 4 many years after it was privatised underneath Margaret Thatcher.
The power firm grew its share of the market to 23.7% of households in Nice Britain by the tip of final yr, in accordance with newest figures, lower than a decade after it was based by its chief government, Greg Jackson.
Octopus confirmed that it gained nearly 1m new gasoline and electrical energy accounts from its rivals final yr alone. It now has 12.9m home accounts throughout gasoline and electrical energy, and serves 7.3 million households.
The report, by the influential power consultancy Cornwall Perception, confirmed that the following largest power provider, which is known to be British Gasoline, held a 23.1% share of the market, or 320,000 fewer accounts than Octopus.
Dan Morris, the chief government of Cornwall Perception, mentioned the toppling of British Gasoline from its main place available in the market was “fairly actually the largest growth within the home retail power market because it opened”.
British Gasoline was privatised in 1986 by way of the “Inform Sid” advertising marketing campaign, which inspired the general public to purchase shares within the firm. The electrical energy board was individually damaged up and privatised within the early Nineteen Nineties.
Octopus was based in 2015 and grew as the federal government and the power regulator for Nice Britain, Ofgem, pushed to open up the market past the then huge six gamers: British Gasoline, EDF, E.ON, npower, ScottishPower and SSE.
The drive allowed a cluster of recent corporations to launch, though the technique was criticised when 29 went bust as gasoline costs soared from late 2021, together with Bulb Power.
Bulb, the largest firm to break down, was snapped up out of a government-backed administration by Octopus in 2022, giving it 1.3 million prospects in a single day. Its rivals contested the deal in court docket however misplaced their authorized problem. Octopus, which counts a fund backed by the previous US vice-president Al Gore amongst its traders, subsequently repaid the federal government nearly £3bn for the price of the bailout late final yr.
Morris mentioned: “Octopus Power began from zero market share in 2015 and has labored its manner as much as the highest spot on this measure in lower than a decade. It is a notable achievement within the extremely aggressive and tightly regulated UK provider market.”
The Cornwall report didn’t present up to date buyer numbers for particular person suppliers, except for Octopus, or identify the following largest suppliers that every maintain shares of between 8% and 15% of the market. Nevertheless, older information printed by the trade regulator means that the checklist would in all probability embody E.ON, Ovo, EDF Power and ScottishPower.
Jackson began his profession on the client items firm Procter & Gamble earlier than working companies together with a espresso store and a mirror producer. He offered a buyer relationship tech enterprise for £4.5m in 2006.
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He constructed Octopus from a UK startup to an organization current in 18 nations, and it was valued at £9bn final yr. Its success is extensively attributed to the corporate’s bespoke software program, Kraken, which permits the provider to supply tariffs that make the most of real-time electrical energy value fluctuations to decrease payments.
The corporate has licensed Kraken to be used by different power suppliers together with E.ON, EDF and Good Power within the UK. The software program can be utilized in different nations by power suppliers together with Tokyo Gasoline in Japan and Origin Power in Australia.
Octopus Power serves 60m accounts by way of Kraken, and it expects to achieve 100m accounts throughout the subsequent two years. Jackson mentioned the corporate had “invested closely in know-how” to ship “this uncommon mixture of speedy progress and excellent service”.
British Gasoline declined to touch upon Octopus Power’s ascent to market chief. It’s more likely to be considered as one other main blow to Chris O’Shea, the chief government of the provider’s mother or father firm Centrica, after the provider was embroiled in scandal over its force-fitting of prepay meters within the properties of susceptible adults and kids.
The Guardian revealed earlier this yr that British Gasoline was the trade ombudsman’s most complained-about provider in 2024, even when adjusted for the dimensions of its buyer base.
