The owner of British Gas has reported a slump in its annual profits after the supplier was ousted as Britain’s largest provider of gas and electricity for the first time last year.
The supplier’s parent company, Centrica, reported adjusted earnings of £2.3bn for last year, down by a third from 2023 when its profits reached £3.5bn after a £500m windfall from the energy regulator.
Ofgem allowed all suppliers to recover the unexpected costs of the energy crisis in the first half of 2023 by adjusting the energy price cap, which helped British Gas to a profit of £751m.
The household supplier’s operating profit slumped to £297m last year, but Centrica said that excluding the impact of the one-off Ofgem allowance meant its performance was “relatively comparable” to the year before.
Octopus grew its share of the market to 23.7% of households in Great Britain by the end of last year, while British Gas had 23.1%.
