Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the UK energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Household energy bills in Britain will rise again in January after regulator Ofgem said it would lift the price cap by 1.2 per cent following an increase in wholesale costs.
The regulator has set the energy price cap for the period between January and March at a level that will mean a typical household pays £1,738 per year, compared with £1,717 now.
The move follows a bigger 10 per cent increase in the cap that took effect in October. Bills for about 26mn households remain hundreds of pounds higher than before the energy crisis prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The price cap, introduced in 2019, sets a limit on how much energy companies can charge homes on default tariffs per unit of gas and electricity consumed. It is reset every three months to reflect changes in wholesale prices.
The higher cap underlines the difficulties facing the Labour government, which attacked the previous Conservative administration over the cost of living crisis and has pledged to reduce energy bills.
This is a developing story