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LONDON (Alliance News) - Good Energy PLC on Thursday continued to demonstrate the gains being made by smaller energy providers after reporting a 36% rise in customer numbers in the first half of the year.
There are over 40 smaller to mid-tier energy suppliers in the UK energy market that are currently poaching customers away from the larger companies that have had a stranglehold on the market for many years, as the UK government and other organisations continue their efforts to encourage more competition in the industry.
SSE PLC, one of the Big Six suppliers, for example, lost 370,000 customers last year and reported further drops on Thursday as another 50,000 customers left between the end of March and the end of June this year.
Good Energy reported strong growth in customer numbers last year and is working toward a goal of having 900,000 customers by 2020. The company is just over a quarter of the way to delivering that target following further rises in the first half of 2016.
Customer numbers grew 36% to 239,750 accounts at the end of June from 176,500 accounts one year ago.
Electricity customers increased by 31% year-on-year to 72,250 from 55,000, and the number of gas customers soared 54% to 43,000 from 28,000.
"This strong growth was the result of a collective switch in H2 2015 and continued underlying demand for the company's 100% renewable electricity and carbon neutral green gas propositions. The company will continue to explore new mass acquisition channels as part of our ongoing growth strategy," said Good Energy.
Customer acquisition is likely to have been boosted by increasing awareness of the company as Good Energy said it achieved its "highest ever brand awareness" in the period and won "industry-leading customer advocacy scores". The business also recently won best customer service and best company of the year from the Renewable Energy Association.
The company scored a net promoter score of +46 compared to the average score attained by the Big Six of -29. The net promoter score is an index ranging from -100 to +100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to others.
Feed-in-tariff customers were a third higher at 124,500 compared to 93,500 last year, and Good Energy said that was driven by the government changes to the feed-in-tariff scheme since the start of the year.
"While we see future growth opportunities in the feed-in-tariff market, we do not expect customer growth to continue at the same pace as recent periods," said the company.
Good Energy said it boosted its power generation capacity by 5.0 megawatts in the period after connecting its latest solar farm in Dorset to the network and a further 5.0 megawatts is expected to be added in the second half.
Good Energy's flagship asset is the Delabole onshore wind farm in north Cornwall, the first ever commercial wind farm in the UK. The company also has the Hampole wind farm near Doncaster and seven solar sites.
"In the first six months of the year, the company has maintained strong customer growth against a competitive landscape with margins in line with expectations whilst improving the competitiveness of our domestic gas proposition," it said.
Good Energy sold a 5.0 megawatt solar site in the first half of the year, ahead of schedule as this was not expected to be completed until the second half. Good Energy said the sale provided a net profit of between GBP430,000 to GBP480,000 and said this has been taken into account by market forecasts for the full year.
"Given current trading, continued growth in customer meter points and performance across the generation portfolio, we expect the full-year result to be in line with expectations," said Good Energy.
Good Energy shares were up 1.2% to 214.00 pence per share on Thursday.
Interim results will be published by the company on September 13.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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