12% of electricity and 15% of gas customers say their ability to pay household bills has been impacted by Covid-19, according to a survey carried out by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities.
2,000 residential customers and 650 SMEs participated in the survey, which seeks to provide additional consumer-based insights to the market monitoring activities of the CRU.
Over 40% of residential customers say they find it easy to compare offers from electricity and gas suppliers, according to a survey carried out by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities.
In order to understand the channels used for comparison, the survey investigated the usage of price comparison websites to compare offers.
Usage of online comparison websites continued to increase, rising from 25% of electricity customers in 2019 to 34% in 2020, and 25% of gas customers in 2019 to 42% in 2020.
When it comes to switching energy supplier, half of electricity and gas consumers surveyed said they have never switched supplier (44% electricity and 43% gas).
Among those who have switched, consumers report similar levels of switching within the last 12 months across both gas and electricity.
For domestic customers, switching levels remain similar to 2019 as 16% of electricity and 16% of gas customers have switched in the past 12 months, with savings the main driver.
Among those who have switched, the ease of switching has been gradually improving since 2016 with 97% in electricity and 91% in gas saying it was easy to switch.
Switching of electricity and gas among SMEs has declined on 2019 levels with electricity down from 25% to 17% and down from 22% to 14% in gas.
