Octopus says it chose to ditch profit to keep energy bills down

Potential 9m profit dropped for 150m investment to shield consumers from price increases, says supplier

Octopus Energy said it has decided against making its first ever annual profit after ploughing 150m into attempting to keep customers' gas and electricity bills down.

The energy supplier said it would have made a slim annual profit of 9m but instead decided to invest in protecting customers from the worst of the energy price increases caused by a sharp rise in wholesale gas costs linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The decision resulted in a 141m operating loss for the last financial year, to the end of April 2022.