Energy retailers were involved in almost 100 “very serious” non-compliance incidents relating to schemes administered by Ofgem over the past two years, the regulator has revealed.
The latest Supplier Performance Report (SPR) covering January to June 2023 shows supplier performance against their obligations on a number of environmental, energy efficiency and social schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) and Feed-in Tariff (FIT) schemes.
In total there have been 99 ‘category 4’ incidents – the most serious – recorded over the last two years. Ofgem did stress that these volumes of category 4 incidents occurred during the period of the gas price crisis and the corresponding turbulence in the energy markets.
Yet the latest figures show there were just nine category 4 incidents in the first six months of 2023, a fall of around 70% from the average recorded over the three previous periods and a 50% fall from the 18 category 4 incidents recorded during the same period last year.
Suppliers including EDF Energy and Ovo were named for their non-compliance with the FIT scheme, while Utility Warehouse was pulled up for failing to submit information regarding the Warm Home Discount (WHD) on time.
In relation to the incidents of late payments for both the FIT and Green Gas Levy (GGL) schemes, suppliers paid within a few days of the relevant deadlines.
“On the WHD the information was submitted two working days after the deadline. Utility Warehouse was required to create an action plan for making future WHD submissions on time and provide assurances that process changes have been made to meet all future reporting deadlines,” Ofgem’s report added.
The regulator has further confirmed that formal enforcement action was not required for these cases.
Additionally Ofgem has listed the suppliers with the most category 4 incidents of non-compliance recorded over the previous two years.
Home Energy has the most with 15 such incidents recorded, while Delta Gas and Power has eight and Utility Warehouse has seven.
