The pace of gas price surge is unprecedented, says Ofgem boss
The boss of UK energy regulator Ofgem has said that the country’s current pace of soaring gas prices is something the watchdog has not seen before.
Chief executive Jonathan Brearley added that “well above” hundreds of thousands of customers could be affected by the hike.
“Have a look at the change in the gas price – it really is something that we don’t think we’ve seen before at this pace,” he told Sky News.
“We do expect a large number of customers to be affected, we’ve already seen hundreds of thousands of customers affected, that may well go well above that.”
The energy watchdog boss, has also told MPs at a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee (BEIS) meeting, that: “It’s not unusual for suppliers to go out of the market. I think what is different this time is that dramatic change in the costs that those suppliers are facing.
“We are going to want to have a ‘lessons learned’ after this.”
The sharp increase in gas prices have left the market volatile for younger, smaller companies, with two domestic energy suppliers going out of business last week.
“We do expect more (suppliers) not to be able to face the circumstances we’re in, but it’s genuinely hard to say more than that, partly because that means predicting what may happen to the gas price.”