At the end of July 2021, the UK Government announced once again that they are frustrated with the behavior and charging habits of energy suppliers throughout the UK. In the past, this type of government frustration has had a major impact on energy suppliers in the UK with the development of the price cap, a limit put on the price a supplier can charge for their default tariff plans.

Recently, however, the government has found a common trend among energy suppliers that they now recognize as “the loyalty penalty”. This is when energy suppliers intentionally set their default tariff costs as high as possible in order to capitalize on consumers that automatically switch to default tariffs when their current contracted tariff plans end. The core issue is really that these energy suppliers know that they offer lower rates on other tariff plans but will attempt to capitalize on and over-charge any consumer that doesn’t monitor their energy tariffs closely. As a result, customers are forced to constantly compare energy suppliers on their own to find the best tariff deals for their needs.

There are two actions that the government is hoping to enact soon to combat this issue, the first of which is what they call an automatic switcher that will help households find the best-priced default tariff plan available for them. The second action is to extend the energy price cap to save homeowners a potential additional £100 a year on the cost associated with energy. These actions could be enacted as soon as 2023, according to the UK government announcement, showing that this is a priority issue for them at the moment as millions of families are regularly being taken advantage of by energy suppliers.