Octopus Energy is expected to repay around £2.8 billion owed in connection with its takeover of Bulb, with the repayment due by September 2024, according to evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee on 25 May 2023. The figure and the timetable were set out in oral evidence on the collapse of Bulb and the special administration regime used to run it.
Bulb collapsed in the summer of 2021 and was placed in a special administration regime, the first use of that vehicle. In June 2022 the National Audit Office reported that £0.9 billion had been spent by Government on running Bulb through the regime in 2021-20221. In October 2022, after a delayed sale, Octopus Energy was identified as the acquirer of Bulb's customers, business assets and liabilities, including customer credit balances1. The transaction completed on 20 December, slightly after the start of the observation window1.
On the repayment, Octopus's chief financial officer and co-founder Stuart Jackson told the committee:
"The repayment, as we look at the markets to date, should be made by September 2024."
The same evidence records a deferral trigger that could move the repayment to September 2025. The committee's published evidence does not set out the terms of that trigger in the passages available.
Costs of the administration have also been reported. The costs at the time of the NAO report for the special administrators, the special administrators' legal advisers and Lazard totalled £49.9 million at the end of January1. The committee heard that the judgment on the transaction was published at the end of March1.
The hearing took place against a backdrop of falling wholesale prices. Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley told the committee the new energy price cap was understood to be £2,074 for an average annual bill, a drop of roughly £1,200 per year, and that the energy price guarantee remained as a backstop if prices spiked upwards again, until the end of March 20241. He said the energy bills discount scheme was in place for the year1.
Why it matters for households
Bulb's customers were moved to Octopus through a supplier of last resort style process, and their credit balances transferred with them. The repayment timetable matters to households because the money owed sits against a ringfenced entity rather than against customer accounts, so the timing of the repayment does not change what a former Bulb customer pays for their energy. What it does affect is the cost that falls on the taxpayer and, indirectly, on bills, since the administration was funded publicly. The scale of the sums involved, £0.9 billion spent running Bulb in 2021-2022 and around £2.8 billion expected to be repaid, illustrates how the cost of supplier failures is carried across the market rather than by the failed company alone. For households weighing switching supplier, the episode is part of the wider picture of energy supplier failures and the financial resilience rules that followed.
What happens next
The repayment should be made by September 2024, with a deferral trigger that could push it to September 20251. The committee's evidence does not state what conditions would activate the deferral.
Sources1 cited
- [](https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13238/html/), committees.parliament.uk