The Utility Regulator has published key findings from our fifth Domestic Consumer Insight Tracker survey. The key findings accompany the full report prepared by Perceptive Insight.
This research is repeated annually to gain insight into consumer experiences, attitudes and behaviour in the Northern Ireland domestic electricity and gas markets.
The research is vitally important to our work and allows us to measure and track the experiences of domestic consumers in the energy market over time. We also use the results to directly inform our regulatory policies and consumer protection work.
This latest survey was carried out between October 2024 and January 2025 with a representative sample of over 1500 domestic consumers in Northern Ireland.
Areas covered in the survey included heating types, payments, interactions with energy suppliers, complaint handling, switching, payment difficulties, consumer protections and support services.
Some key headline findings are:
- Consumers may have become less engaged with their energy contracts. Respondents were less likely to have compared energy deals and the proportion of respondents who said they would be likely to switch electricity supplier in the next 12 months decreased from 25% in 2023 to 16% in 2024.
- Respondents were also less likely to have read correspondence from their supplier. In 2024, 42% of electricity and 41% of gas respondents said they had read the last written correspondence they received from their suppliers. This is a decrease from 50% and 49% in 2023, respectively.
- The overall proportions of respondents who said that they were struggling to pay for their electricity or gas have fallen this year. The proportion of respondents who said they sometimes struggle to pay their electricity bills has decreased from 33% in 2023 to 23% in 2024. For gas, this figure has decreased from 36% to 27%. However, some groups were found to be struggling more than others including those with a disability, consumers living in social housing, private renters and those living in the most deprived areas.
- The percentage of domestic consumers who are aware that their energy supplier has supports in place for vulnerable consumers and know a bit about the services offered has decreased from 36% in 2023 to 23% in 2024. Uptake of these services also remains very low. Only 1% of respondents said they have signed up to any support services, including 2% of respondents who would be considered vulnerable and 7% of those who have or live with someone who has a disability or illness.
- Respondents were more willing to support paying extra on their energy bills for future investment than last year. 19% were willing to pay extra for projects to help vulnerable consumers (12% in 2023), 19% were willing to pay extra to protect the environment (9% in 2023) and 10% were willing to pay more for network reliability improvements (4% in 2023).
Key findings from the survey are summarised in our highlight report and infographic. We have also published the full report.
Copies of this licence modification decision paper can be made available in large print, Braille, audio cassette and a variety of minority languages if required.