Nabuh Energy acquired by British Gas

Customers will not see any changes to their tariffs or contract terms and they should continue to pay as usual.

All affected customers will be contacted by British Gas in the coming days.

British Gas say any customer who doesn't want to be transferred over to them can switch to another energy provider without penalty.

Credit: Piotr Swat/Shutterstock.com

Acquisition

British Gas's owner Centrica confirmed they have purchased Nabuh Energy's business including their 36,000 customers and the 70 employees currently based in Sheffield.

The transfer is expected to be completed by the end of April when customers and staff will become part of British Gas Energy. The date given for the switch is 27 April 2021.

Existing Nabuh Energy customers won't see changes to their contract or tariffs, and their energy supply will continue without interruption. Any existing payment plans will remain in place and credit balances are secure.

Customers will continue to receive their energy under the Nabuh Energy brand rather than being switched to British Gas branding.

British Gas are keen to stress nothing will change for customers, although they do say customers can switch away if they don't want to receive their energy from British Gas.

Nabuh Energy

Nabuh Energy has been supplying energy to customers since 2017 with a focus on prepayment meter customers.

They wanted to remove the penalties experienced by customers who choose prepayment meters as a more flexible way of paying for their energy use.

They have previously come to attention for failing to make their Renewables Obligation (RO) payment before the late payment deadline in October 2020.

Ofgem first named them as a supplier of concern then issued them with a final order threatening their energy licence after their debt of £2.68m wasn't settled on time.

Just prior to this, Nabuh were discussing expansion plans with KPMG, so this latest move towards acquisition by British Gas is something of a surprise.

British Gas

This isn't the first time in recent months British Gas have stepped in to acquire the customers of other suppliers.

Back in September 2020, they confirmed they had acquired the customer base of failing Robin Hood Energy, taking on around 112,000 domestic customers.

This was more of an orderly transfer of customers than we saw in the case of Simplicity Energy when they collapsed a few months later.

Around 50,000 domestic and non-domestic of Simplicity Energy's customers were taken on by British Gas's digital brand British Gas Evolve after regulator Ofgem stepped in to protect customers of the failed supplier.

It's notable that Nabuh Energy's brand is being retained in this takeover, something we haven't seen too much of during the spate of supplier collapses over the past few years.

British Gas say their acquisition of Nabuh, Robin Hood Energy and Simplicity Energy customers is part of their investment into their core markets as they seek to return the business to growth.

As of Q2 2020, British Gas had an 18.23% share of the electricity market, down from a high of 25% in 2013. Their share of the gas market stands at 27.03%, down from 40.7% in 2013.

They remain the biggest energy supplier in the UK, recently raising the prices of their SVT tariffs to the maximum allowed under the energy price cap in line with other major suppliers.