Who owns Great Britain’s electricity supply? Market share of energy companies British Gas, EDF and E.On explained

As a dispute over fishing rights in Jersey waters rumbles on, the topic of who owns whose energy has grown.

It began when France threatened to cut off Jersey’s power supply in response to a new licensing system introduced in the wake of Brexit negotiations.

Around 90% of the energy supplied to Jersey comes from France, despite the Channel Island being a British Crown Dependency, due to its location off the French coastline.

Now talk of Whitehall is the threat from France to disrupt electricity supply to Jersey could have bigger repercussions in the French-owned EDF’s trading capacity in Britain.

Here we take a look at how the market share of Britain’s energy supply is divided up...

Who owns Britain’s electricity?

Ofgem, the country’s government regulator for energy markets, has published figures detailing the percentage market share of Britain’s electricity supply from the end of 2020.

How much of Britain’s electricity is powered by British owned companies?

The majority of electricity supplied in Great Britain comes from British owned companies, according to Ofgem statistics.

Latest figures, produced by Ofgem for the last quarter of 2020, shows that 52.4% of the electricity supply market share is taken up by companies based and owned in Britain.

The biggest contributors include British Gas (18.2%), who are owned by Centrica, and OVO (14.6%), who bought its retail arm of the business at the start of 2020.

While several smaller suppliers make up the remainder of the British owned companies’ market share of the electricity market, there is also a joint venture with the Netherlands in Shell (3.2%).

Green Network Energy went bust in early 2021 with EDF becoming the new supplier of its customers.

How much of Britain’s electricity is powered by foreign owned companies?

Of the Big 6 energy companies, only British Gas remains under British ownership.

EDF is predominantly owned by the French government, German company E.ON Energie AG own E.On and Npower, and Scottish Power is owned by Spanish based Iberdrola.

SSE was bought out by OVO at the start of 2020.

EDF own 10.3% of the current electricity supply market share, E.On own 15.1%, Npower 2.7% and Scottish Power 9.1%, according to the latest figures produced by Ofgem.

In addition, Shell Energy occupies 3.2% of the market share. Shell Energy is a joint venture between the Netherlands and Britain, with headquarters in both countries.

It means that 37.2% of Britain’s energy supply is powered by non-British companies outright.