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A further three energy retailers have ceased trading, leaving another 233,000 customers for the supplier of last resort (SoLR) process.
Igloo, Symbio and Enstroga Energy posted messages confirming they were exiting the market shortly before Ofgem confirmed the news.
Igloo’s founders said the market had become unsustainable and accused Ofgem of ignoring calls to reform a price cap methodology which “is designed to favour the largest suppliers”.
The latest batch of failures takes the total number to 12 this year, exceeding the previous record of nine set in 2019. 
Southampton-based Igloo supplied 179,000 cutomers, Symbio 48,000 and Enstroga 6,000. Combined they represented a less than one per cent domestic market share.
Founded in 2017, Igloo Energy has been consistently recognised by Citizens Advice for its good customer service and topped the star ratings charts on several occasions.
In a joint statement co-founders Matt Clemow and Henry Brown said although its heat pump business Igloo Works will continue to trade, its core business of energy retail operates in a market that is “sadly no longer sustainable” for Igloo.
“The energy price cap which was introduced by government has been an important tool for ensuring that consumers are not unfairly penalised on standard variable rate tariffs.
“While we continue to support the price cap mechanism, the basis on which it’s calculated by Ofgem is designed to favour the largest suppliers and any calls to review this by the challenger brands, like Igloo, continues to be resisted. The current extreme price shock that we’re experiencing is one that few, if anyone, anticipated.”
They went on to thank their employees and apologise for “the impact this will have on those customers we have been proud to supply”.
Igloo, along with Symbio, was lately shown to have been in Elexon credit default. Additionally Elexon recently proposed to expel Symbio from the Balancing and Settlement Code.
Symbio has been under fire from the regulator on several occasions over its late payments to schemes such as the feed-in tariff (FIT) and the renewables obligation (RO). Last month Ofgem ordered the supplier to pay £450,000 into the FIT scheme.
Earlier this year customer review site Trustpilot revealed it was investigating Symbio over the nature of its responses to customers leaving negative feedback.
Trustpilot stressed it takes action when “businesses act in a way that is threatening, or is perceived to be so”. It said it expected all users to “play nice”.
An unprecedented rise in wholesale gas costs has led to a slew of supplier failures in recent weeks, with well over 2 million customers seeing their supplier go under so far.
Following the latest failures, a total of 34 suppliers have exited the market through the SoLR process since 2016.
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