Ofgem has appointed British Gas Business as the temporary supplier of about 40,000 customers of Electricity 4 Business (E4B) after the independent supplier went into administration on Wednesday, the energy regulator said. British Gas, part of Centrica , will take over as “supplier of last resort” to E4B’s small business customers from 00:01 a.m. on Saturday after administrators PwC failed to find a buyer for the company, Ofgem said.

“We are working hard to ensure a seamless transition to British Gas Business for all affected customers and we will be contacting every customer to explain this,” Badar Khan, managing director of British Gas Business, said. Customers transferred to British Gas are free to negotiate new contacts or to switch to another supplier at any time but could face steep rises in their electricity costs until they do so. A spokesman for British Gas declined to say what charges the temporary customers would face, saying each would be told individually. “From our perspective the margins are relatively thin,” he said. “But it does provide a platform and safety net for those customers.”

“Any new market entrant without some sort of generation capability will really struggle because of the “vertical integration’ of a handful of power players preventing real price discovery and wholesale market liquidity.”

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