A landmark rescue: 1.5 million customers migrated in under six months

The Challenge

In November 2021, Bulb Energy, then the UK's seventh-largest energy supplier, collapsed into special administration due to unprecedented wholesale market shocks. This stranded 1.5 million customers (6% of the UK market) and hundreds of employees.

A year later, Octopus acquired Bulb and faced the task of absorbing a major competitor under heavy regulatory scrutiny, in the middle of a national energy crisis.

How We Did It

Rescuing a business already in special administration is a different challenge in kind from acquiring a functioning one. We were absorbing 1.5 million customers sitting in limbo with no long-term operator, under active scrutiny from government and Ofgem, with a public obligation to protect every customer and every job.

The Octopus Operating System™ and Kraken platform gave us the structure to move through that uncertainty rather than wait for it to resolve. We used S-Curve migration, bypassing overly bureaucratic approvals processes and accelerating the launch into live environments. Frontline specialists had direct access to developer tools from day one, so issues surfacing in live environments were fixed in real time rather than escalated through governance chains.

That's how we delivered:

• 1 million accounts onboarded in under three months, 1.5 million in under six, with no supply interruption for any customer.
• Balances, direct debits, and tariffs transferred automatically. The only thing customers had to do was set a new password.
• 94% of former Bulb staff chose to stay. They were onboarded through immersive roadshows and retrained as Energy Specialists on Kraken.
• Our 4.8-star Trustpilot rating held throughout. 75% of migrated customers said they were satisfied, the top reason being that nothing felt different.
• A potential £6.5bn taxpayer liability became a £1.5bn surplus. Protected hundreds of green energy jobs, added nothing to customer bills, and generated a £1.5bn profit for the UK government.

The Impact

A huge profit for taxpayers. Service quality held. Almost all of Bulb's staff chose to stay. Every customer moved platforms, the only task being to set a new password.

This is what the Octopus Operating System™ looks like under real pressure. Not a framework applied to a stable business, but a live system running inside a crisis.

Source: Octopus Energy press release, 24 October 2024. octopus.energy/press/UK-gov-profit-bulb-bailout/