{"id":544648,"date":"2026-04-22T13:05:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/544648\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T13:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:05:30","slug":"energy-prices-could-stay-high-into-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/544648\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy prices ‘could stay high into winter’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blevings added: “Information I received yesterday said it we see a resolution before the end of this month we may see a return to relative normality by quarter four”.<\/p>\n

Quarter four would mean the start of October.<\/p>\n

The Utility Regulator has warned that cuts in gas prices which took effect in April will be reversed if the crisis continues.<\/p>\n

Higher wholesale higher prices have not yet been passed through to consumers, as energy companies buy their gas up to two years in advance.<\/p>\n

The longer the conflict continues the less scope they have to “hedge” their prices in this way.<\/p>\n

Chief Executive of the Utility RegulatorJohn French, also noted that wholesale prices in the all-island wholesale electricity market have risen by 19% since the start of the crisis.<\/p>\n

Those prices have also not yet been passed through to households.<\/p>\n

The MPs heard criticism of the \u00a3100 oil heating grant which was announced by the NI Executive last week.<\/p>\n

It will be paid out to around 300,000 lower income households in about three months time.<\/a><\/p>\n

Pat Austin, from National Energy Action, described it as “woefully inadequate.”<\/p>\n

She compared it to similar schemes in Scotland and Wales where some households will get \u00a3300 or \u00a3200 respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blevings added: “Information I received yesterday said it we see a resolution before the end of this month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-544648","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-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544648","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=544648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}