Why did Bulb flicker out? 

The energy crisis has claimed its largest scalp to date. Is the market irretrievably broken?

Bulb Energy Ltd
RIP: ‘the fastest-growing company in Europe’
(Image credit: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The collapse of Bulb energy – the UK’s seventh-biggest energy supplier – has plunged the industry into uncharted waters, said Rachel Millard in The Daily Telegraph. Because rivals have baulked at absorbing Bulb’s 1.7 million customers, the company has “effectively been nationalised” after running out of money owing to soaring wholesale energy costs. Bulb is “by far the largest” of the 20 energy suppliers that have collapsed since the onset of “a global gas supply crunch” in September, and its failure will add to demands for reform of the market and a price cap on bills. Meanwhile, “taxpayers face a bill of potentially hundreds of millions of pounds” to keep Bulb operating – until it is restructured or sold, or its customers are transferred to other suppliers.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up