18 August 2022 
3min to read 
On the 18th of July, Ofgem will launch their Centralised Switching Service that should allow all customers to easily change their energy supplier within 5 working days, and in later stages of the platform only 1 working day. The plan is introduced to increase competitiveness in the energy market as switching suppliers is made easier, which would hopefully reduce energy bills for consumers in these difficult times.
Published on: 19-07-2022
How does the Centralised Switching Service work?
Currently, it takes up to 21 days to switch suppliers in the UK. The process is often viewed as complicated, slow, and faulty. The complicated process is often a big barrier to actually making a switch. A competitive energy market would require that people could move to different energy suppliers in a quick and efficient manner. Ofgem, in cooperation with the Data Communications Company, wants to speed up the process to a guaranteed maximum of 5 and potentially in later stages even just 1 working day.
They aim to combine all energy suppliers, switching websites and websites collecting data on energy supplier switches to create a single platform that everyone can use to quickly switch energy supplier and see their data being transferred seamlessly from one supplier to another. This way, the consumer can indicate in the platform that they want to switch and then will be actually switched automatically within a very short timeframe. Ofgem and your old and new suppliers together will make sure that your gas and/or electricity supply will always remain uninterrupted so you do not have to worry about anything happening to your supply.
Program combines electricity and gas usage.
Currently, there are separate websites to switch gas and electricity suppliers. If you want to change your supplier for gas or electricity both of them currently have completely different processes to actually make the change. This is one of the major factors that complicate the switching process as it is right now. Also, many of the 55,000 yearly erroneous switches stern from the asynchronous process that is currently in place.
The Centralised Switching Service aims to combine both gas and electricity in the same platform to allow consumers to change for both fuel types in the same place without needing to manage different processes at the same time. This will hugely decrease the complexity of switching and therefore make it more attractive for consumers to actually switch. For consumers, this is good news because it happens quite frequently that a consumer could save money by switching to a different supplier. Before, consumers might even have identified a cheaper alternative but were so discouraged by the complex switching process that they refrained from switching in the end. Ofgem hopes that with the new system this never happens again and anyone that would like to switch should be able to do so effortlessly.
From the 18th July 2022 onwards, the Centralised Switching Service will be live. If you have any questions about the switching service please consult the Ofgem website or the Data Communications Company website for more information.
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