Energy UK responds to price cap announcement
In response to Ofgem’s announcement on price cap this morning, Energy UK’s Director of Regulation, Dan Alchin, said:
“This rise, while widely predicted, will be hugely worrying to customers. We know many customers are already struggling with energy bills and other costs and for millions of households, these latest increases will be simply unaffordable.
“The rise is driven by the cost of buying gas on the wholesale market, which has been at record levels for about a year now – with prices this week ten times what they were before the crisis. These costs are out of the control of energy retail suppliers who need to recoup them, otherwise we risk more going out of business in addition to the 30 that have done so since last August – causing huge cost and disruption to customers.
“However bills of this size were unimaginable a few months ago and we cannot expect customers to bear the brunt. Retail suppliers will continue to do all they can to offer help and support, especially to their most vulnerable customers, but faced with bill increases of this size and the numbers of customers who will need support, it won’t be enough.
“The Government must step in urgently and put in place further support for this winter and with energy costs likely to remain high for the foreseeable future, look at ways to keep bills down next year as well – as we outlined in our letter to the Chancellor last week.”
