Octopus Energy completes acquisition of Bulb

The completion of the deal to transfer Bulb customers to Octopus Energy took place last night, bringing vital reassurance to Bulb’s 1.5 million customers following a year of uncertainty.

Customers will remain on Bulb systems for a while, and will continue to be looked after by the same Bulb team.

The agreement, implemented via a new process known as the Energy Transfer Scheme (ETS), will save taxpayers millions of pounds as Bulb moves back into private ownership and the government is no longer directly exposed to the volatility of the wholesale energy market.

The taxpayer will also benefit from a profit share agreement that forms part of the deal.

The ETS was approved by the Business and Energy Secretary on 7 November and the High Court ruled that the transfer can go ahead, setting a commencement date for the ETS to take place at 23:58 on 20 December.

Greg Jackson, CEO and Founder of Octopus Energy, comments, “This starts to bring an end to the huge financial exposures for taxpayers and paves the way for a better and more certain future for Bulb’s staff and customers.

“For now, we’d ask Bulb customers to sit tight – they will still be looked after by the Bulb team. We’ll be in touch with customers as and when their account is ready to move to Octopus’ award-winning systems.”

Judicial Reviews have been received against the Business and Energy Secretary’s decision to approve the sale of Bulb Energy, with court dates for the reviews set for next year.

Octopus has a strong track record in large scale customer migrations, having completed over 10 acquisitions of energy supply companies and their customers. Most recently Octopus moved over 580,000 Avro Energy customers to its Kraken platform – the largest customer migration ever conducted under the supplier of last resort (SOLR) process.