An upper limit in Great Britain determines how high the average annual energy bill may be at most. However, this cap is regularly adjusted – soon it will probably be even higher. Millions of households may not be able to cope.
Brits need to wrap up warm: According to a new forecast, the cost of electricity and gas could triple in the coming year from current levels. As the consulting company Auxilione announced, the state price cap for electricity and gas for an average household should be raised to £6,000 (about €7,000) by April, according to their estimates.
The current annual energy bill cap is just under £2,000 (around €2,350) and is already significantly higher than last autumn when it was £1,400. By how much the energy bill may rise from October is to be announced by the supervisory authority Ofgem as early as next week.
It is already expected that millions of households will only be able to heat to a limited extent in winter because they can no longer afford the high costs. It was only on Friday that the NHS Confederations, the association of healthcare providers, warned of health risks for large parts of the population and called on the government to take action. The promised aid of £400 per household is nowhere near enough to keep a large part of the population from sliding into fuel poverty – meaning they spend more than 10% of their income on energy bills have to spend.
