Ofgem Call for Evidence on the future of supply market arrangements - UK Energy Research Centre response

This response provides recommendations on the reform of the energy supply market, based on research on “energy retail market governance” undertaken within UKERC.

• Overall, we recommend that reform of the retail energy market should not be considered in independence from the work on ‘systems flexibility’, energy transitions, ‘whole systems’, network charging reform and wholesale market policy.
• We recommend that the evaluation of energy retail market success should explicitly include an assessment of its compatibility with a low-carbon transition. Specifically, the retail market should allow for long-term investment recovery in low-carbon solutions .
• We also provide an overview of approaches to organising default energy commodity supply in some US energy retail competition states.
• We suggest that Ofgem (and Government) consider improving the potential for intermediaries and assess the likely implications of resale of commodity energy by a wider range of eligible players, subject to customer protection requirements.