Electricity prices are on track to jump by a fifth over the next four or five years, according to the UK\u2019s biggest energy supplier.<\/p>\n
Octopus Energy\u2019s Rachel Fletcher told MPs that the Government should urgently consider changing how wholesale gas prices drive changes in UK energy costs in order to help British households.<\/p>\n
Energy bosses also blamed \u201ccomplex regulations\u201d for the UK having higher wholesale energy prices than some other European countries, during an Energy and Net Zero Select Committee session.<\/p>\n
The warnings come two weeks after the energy price for a typical household in England, Scotland and Wales increased by 2%.<\/p>\n
The energy bill for the average household paying by direct debit for gas and electricity increased from \u00a31,720 to \u00a31,755 per year.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Ms Fletcher, director for regulation and economics at Octopus Energy, said the calculation of gas prices within the UK wholesale energy market needs to be looked at.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cThere are proposals on the table we think the Government should be looking at to take gas out the wholesale market and put it into a strategic reserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that needs very serious and urgent consideration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we continue on the path that we are on right now, in all likelihood electricity prices for a typical customer are going to be 20% higher in four or five years\u2019 time than they are now, and that\u2019s even if wholesale prices halve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Simone Rossi, the chief executive of EDF UK, called on the UK to ease regulatory burdens in order to help bring energy prices lower.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe point is that bills are very high and there are things we can do to reduce them.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom point of delivery, the cost of serving customers in the UK is about \u00a3100 per annum, and in France it is 45 euros, so more or less half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not to do with wholesale price or gas marginal costs but is driven by the fact we have a very complex regulation which has become more sophisticated over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: \u201cWe categorically reject this speculation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWholesale gas costs for households remain 75% higher than they were before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the main reason energy bills remain high.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way to bring down energy bills for good is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will get the UK off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel prices and onto clean, homegrown power that we control.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Electricity prices are on track to jump by a fifth over the next four or five years, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,42372,88356,5363,3682,63492,87978,88355,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-204299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-electricity-prices","11":"tag-energy-bill","12":"tag-energy-bills","13":"tag-energy-prices","14":"tag-gas-prices","15":"tag-octopus-energy","16":"tag-rachel-fletcher","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}