An energy company has gone bust leaving its thousands of customers without an energy supplier.
Rebel Energy, which launched in 2022 promising to be a ‘different type of supplier’, announced on Tuesday it would cease trading.
Dan Bates, chief executive, wrote on LinkedIn: ‘Rebel Energy has been facing a perfect storm of rising wholesale costs during Jan and Feb together with the pressure of the cost of living crisis on our customers.’
The energy price cap increased from £1,738 to £1,849 on the same day, as geopolitical tensions have driven gas prices higher.
It mirrors the collapse of smaller energy firms at the peak of the energy crisis when wholesale prices hit new highs but the firms could not pass on the price to consumers.
Collapse: Rebel Energy has ceased trading leaving its 90,000 customers without a supplier
Bates said a Provisional Order placed by Ofgem on Rebel Energy also meant that it needed significant investment to ‘address an unexpected forecast cash shortfall in April.
‘Regrettably, we have not been able to raise the required capital in the short period of time to secure the future of the business’.
Rebel Energy had approximately 80,000 domestic suppliers and supplied around 10,000 small businesses.
In Citizen Advice’s most recent ranking of major energy suppliers, Rebel Energy came bottom with a score of 2.4 out of 5.
Its customers waited 1 minute and 42 seconds on average when they called its helpline, while just 62.9 per cent of emails were responded to within two days.
What will happen to Rebel Energy customers?
Regulator Ofgem will appoint a new supplier for Rebel Energy customers under the ‘Supplier of Last Resort’ safety net, similar to what happened in the energy crisis.
Energy supply will continue and any credit balances will be protected, while domestic customers will be protected by the price cap when they’re switched to a new supplier.
Ofgem will allocate a new supplier in the coming days, who will contact Rebel Energy customers.
It told customers to wait until a new supplier is appointed before looking into switching to a new supplier, and to take a meter reading for when the new supplier gets in touch.
Tim Jarvis, director general for markets at Ofgem, said: ‘Rebel Energy customers do not need to worry, and I want to reassure them that they will not see any disruption to their energy supply, and any credit they may have on their accounts remains protected under Ofgem’s rules.
‘We are working quickly to appoint new suppliers for all impacted customers. We’d advise customers not to try to switch supplier in the meantime, and a new supplier will be in touch in the coming weeks with further information.
‘We have worked hard to improve the financial resilience of suppliers in recent years, implementing a series of rules to make sure they can weather unexpected shocks.
‘But like any competitive market, some companies will still fail from time to time, and our priority is making sure consumers are protected if that happens.’