Experts predict the price cap will fall by £446 to £2,054 (Picture: Getty Images)
Ofgem are set to announce a £450 drop to its energy price cap tomorrow, but campaigners have warned the fuel crisis ‘is far from over’.
Consultancy firm Cornwall Insight predicts the price cap will fall by £446 to £2,054 a year from July, based on falling wholesale energy prices.
It is then expected to fall again to £1,976 in October.
But it’s feared the lower cap won’t provide much relief to households as the Government’s support schemes come to an end.
A typical consumer currently pays no more than £2,500 a year because of the Energy Price Guarantee.
But the threshold for the guarantee rises to £3,000 in July – and the scheme is expected to end entirely next March.
The £400 winter discount to every household, paid in six instalments, also officially ended two months ago.
Campaigners have warned the energy crisis is ‘far from over’ (Picture: Getty Images)
The cap does not set the maximum a household will pay for their energy but limits the amount providers can charge them per unit of gas or electricity, so those who use more energy will pay more.
Only those in receipt of means-tested benefits, pensioners and disabled people are currently set to receive further help with their energy bills, amounting to £900, £300 and £150 respectively.
The standing charge, roughly £300 paid each year by households to access gas and electricity, is unlikely to fall.
Cornwall Insight said it did not expect bills to return to pre-Covid levels ‘before the end of the decade at the earliest’.
The standing charge to access gas and electricity is unlikely to fall (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
It added they were still about £1,000 higher compared to 2021.
Fuel poverty charity National Energy Action (NEA) also warned that while a cut to the price cap ‘might seem like good news’, bills in July would be comparable to last winter because of the Government’s ending support.
NEA chief executive Adam Scorer said: ‘Coming out of winter, most people will welcome any respite from record high prices, but it still leaves prices more than 80% higher than the start of the energy crisis and two million more households trapped in fuel poverty.
‘More than two and a half million low income and vulnerable households are no longer receiving any Government support for unaffordable bills. For them, the energy crisis is far from over.’
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‘The energy crisis is far from over.’
