Ofgem’s failures to regulate energy suppliers since 2018 has "come at a considerable cost" to households, a watchdog report has found.

It comes as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the energy regulator didn’t tighten requirements for its newest suppliers until 2019 as for existing suppliers until 2021.

Ofgem is still doing so despite issues with the financial resilience of energy retailers emerging in 2018 as well as prices of wholesale gas and electricity increasing to unprecedented levels.

In the report, the committee found that 29 energy suppliers have failed since July 2021, seeing more than four million households affected.

Bournemouth Echo: Energy bills Energy bills (Image: PA)

As well as forcing customers to pay the £2.7 billion cost of failures at an extra £94 per household, but the watchdog has said that the prices are likely to increase.

The report concludes that this was done to “Ofgem’s failure to effectively regulate the energy supplier market.”

Adding the regulation “did not strike the right balance between promoting competition in the energy suppliers market and ensuring energy suppliers were financially resilient."

They also found that the price cap was “providing only very limited protection to households from increases in the wholesale price of energy.”

Noting that Ofgem is expecting prices could get “significantly worse through 2023".