Independent supplier Extra Energy has become the twelfth supplier to be obligated under the government’s Energy Company Obligation (Eco) scheme.

In its recent annual audit of suppliers, Ofgem found that the supplier had grown sufficiently to meet the threshold to be obligated under the scheme – which requires larger suppliers to deliver energy efficiency measures such as loft insulation and new boilers to domestic customers.

Currently in the second stage (Eco2), the scheme is expected to close in March 2017, and will be followed by a transitional year before the new obligation is announced. The additional supplier will mean the remaining Eco2 obligation will be proportionately split between the obligated suppliers.

In an update, Ofgem said there was some variation in suppliers’ progress towards meeting their obligations.

Taken together, suppliers still need to deliver 6.05 Metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) of carbon savings and £1.60 billion of cost savings before the end of the scheme in 2017 (based on measures notified to the end of March 2016).

Earlier this year, Lord Bourne under-secretary of state for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said that energy efficiency measures in the wake of the Green Deal and Eco would be “centric to fuel poverty”.

However, he said detailed plans would not be set out until 2018, with a focus on “how we recast Eco”.

Shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead warned last month that early signs suggest the replacement scheme for Eco and the Green Deal “won’t be good enough”. He told Utility Week “it doesn’t look like it’s going to be anything like even the level of Eco”.