Bord Gáis Energy profit decline dents UK parent's growth

It saw a 33% drop in profit and a 4,000-person fall in customers last year

Thu, 24 Feb, 2022 - 20:39

Geoff Percival

Bord Gáis Energy saw a 33% drop in profit and a 4,000-person fall in customers last year, annual results from parent company UK energy utility Centrica show.

Bord Gáis Energy made an adjusted operating profit of £28m (€33.5m) last year, down from a profit of £42m in 2020. Its profits were hit by the well-publicised temporary closure of its Whitegate power plant in Co Cork. It saw a marginal decline in customer complaints, but also in total customer numbers which fell 1% from 513,000 in 2020 to 509,000 as of the end of last year.

Centrica said Bord Gáis Energy customer numbers fell due to a competitive pricing environment.

On a group-wide basis, Centrica, which also owns British Gas, said its good performance in 2021 was dented by a number of issues, including a disappointing performance from British Gas Services, the Whitegate outage, and lower energy marketing and trading profit.

Centrica, Britain’s largest energy supplier, reported a doubling in adjusted profit for 2021 and said its British Gas brand had taken on about 700,000 customers after the collapse of rivals hit by soaring energy costs amid a cap on prices.

That cap in the UK is being lifted by a record 54% from April, providing relief to suppliers but piling the pain on households.

Russia's invasion

Centrica, whose British Gas brand had around 3.4m customers at the end of 2021, said it was too early to say what impact Russia's invasion of Ukraine would have on long-term energy prices in Britain.

Prompt wholesale British gas prices leapt around 30% on news of the invasion.

"I don’t think it's helpful to speculate on an unfolding situation," group chief executive Chris O'Shea said.

After losing customers to a flurry of new suppliers and then suffering a sharp drop in demand at the start of the Covid pandemic, Centrica has been simplifying its business to focus on energy services and selling energy production assets.