Who Is My Energy Supplier?

The honest answer first: a postcode cannot tell you who supplies your energy. Nobody publishes a map of which household is with which supplier, because that is a contract rather than a place — two neighbours on the same street can be with different companies, and one of them may have switched last week.

What a postcode does determine is which of the fourteen electricity distribution regions you sit in, and which network operator owns the cables that reach your door. Those are fixed by geography. They also decide the maximum you can be charged, because Ofgem sets the price cap per region. So the lookup below gives you the part that is genuinely derivable, and the section under it gives you the two official services that name your actual supplier.

What a postcode can and cannot tell you

Several tools online promise to find your supplier from a postcode. None of them can, and what they generally return is what this page returns — the distribution region — dressed up as an answer to a different question. It is worth being clear about the difference, because acting on the wrong one wastes a phone call.

How to find out who supplies you

Gas and electricity are held on separate registers run by separate bodies, which is why there are two routes rather than one — and why a household can be told its electricity supplier and its gas supplier by two different organisations.

• Electricity: Find My Supplier — Enter your postcode and house number and it returns your electricity supplier and your MPAN, the 21-digit number that identifies your meter point.
• Gas: Meter Number Helpline — Call 0870 608 1524 with your address, Monday to Friday. It returns your gas supplier and your MPRN, the meter point reference number. Calls are charged at 7p a minute plus your provider’s access charge.

Before either, check the obvious places. An old bill, a bank statement or a direct debit line on your banking app will usually name the supplier in a few seconds. If you have just moved in, the previous occupier's supplier is the one you are with until you switch — you are on their deemed contract, which is normally the supplier's standard variable tariff and rarely their best one.

Why your region matters anyway

The region is not a consolation prize. Ofgem's price cap is set regionally, so the maximum unit rate and standing charge you can legally be charged depend on the answer above rather than on a national figure. The gap between the cheapest and dearest regions is real money over a year.

Suppliers price regionally too. Every Octopus and EDF tariff code ends in the letter for the region it applies to, which is why a rate quoted in one part of the country does not apply in another. You can see the current cap rates for every region and how domestic bills have moved over the decades.

Supplier, network operator and shipper

Three roles get confused, and knowing which is which saves being passed between them.

Your supplier sells you the energy and sends the bill. You chose it, or inherited it when you moved in, and you can change it. Billing disputes, tariffs, meter readings and complaints all belong here.

Your network operator — the distribution network operator for electricity, the gas distribution network for gas — owns and maintains the cables and pipes that physically reach your home. You cannot choose it. Power cuts, damaged cables, a smell of gas and connections are theirs. In a power cut you call 105, which routes you to the right operator automatically.

A shippersits between the two on the gas side, moving gas through the network on your supplier's behalf. You will never need to contact one, but the word appears on industry paperwork and it is not a fourth kind of supplier.

If your supplier has failed, Ofgem appoints a replacement under the supplier of last resort process and that new supplier contacts you. Your supply does not stop, and your credit balance is protected. Take a meter reading and wait to be contacted rather than switching immediately.