Should I switch outside of the Big 6 energy companies?

macman

When was the last time that happened in the UK?

Haarlem

Both BizzEnergy and Electricity4Business both suppliers to businesses went into administration in 2008. If I remember British Gas took over the customer base.

With the volatile energy market the smaller companies could be caught out with future purchasing. I think it is a point to consider when changing supplier, and you can manage the risk by monitoring your credit balance

macman

So not a single domestic supplier has gone bust in the last 8-10 years then?
When companies in this sector get into difficulty they are usually taken over by rivals, did this not happen to Atlantic quite a few years back when they were absorbed into SSE? I was with them around that time.

JimmyTheWig

Lozzieb1989 wrote: »

something makes me nervous about having energy provided by a company I've never heard of - I don't know why!

I agree with you.
When I last switched I disregarded the small companies at the top of the list and went for the cheapest of the big companies.
Had huge problems switching and afterwards.
I doubt that a smaller company could have done any worse!

teddysmum

When last considering a move, I did calculations for the companies available to me and found the smaller ones cheaper. However, I hadn't considered new tariffs with my current Big 6 supplier and actually found the saving would be a possible amount under £20 (depending on exact usage), so stayed put, as my tariff had no early leaving penalty (meaning I have switched internally, twice, since then).

topicalcat

What about Flow Energy who have just come out smelling of roses in the Which Energy survey out this week. Flow have a contract with Shell to supply energy so they have a secure supply, Small company, 100,000 customers but thst backing from Shell looks good. They have reasonable prices and they are good to deal with, switched to them from Co-op Energy when Co-op had a meltdown in their billing system.