BILLS in England, Scotland and Wales are expected to increase by about £9 a month over the next three months, according to reports.
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has written to Ofgem, urging the watchdog to take swift action, as a Whitehall source told The Guardian typical energy bill could soar by more than £100 a year.
The source reportedly said they blamed the global gas prices increase amid war in Ukraine.
This month, gas prices hit a two-year high, with the energy price cap rising by £149 in October and a further £21 in January.
Cornwall Insight, a consultancy which produces closely watched forecasts for the energy price cap, released its latest forecast on Tuesday.
The group said household energy bills are set to rise again in April, and it expects Ofgem to reveal that the typical household energy bill will rise by 5%, or £85, to £1823.
Dr Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight, said: “Households have been hit hard over the past few months, and with bills set to rise for a third consecutive time the pressure is not letting up.
“While we’re not seeing a return to the peak of the energy crisis, the market is more volatile than it has been in quite some time and households are bearing the brunt of cold weather and low gas storage levels across Europe.”
Miliband has asked the Ofgem chief executive to set out faster mitigations to ease the pressure of the “rollercoaster” of global gas markets.
He wrote: “In recent months we have seen once again the dangers for our country of being exposed to fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators,” and said the UK was “highly exposed to these global gas markets”.
“Once again, the British people and British businesses will face the consequences of fossil fuel markets we do not control,” he added.
The predicted price cap increase in April will mean bills are more than £600 a year above where they were before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Tessa Khan, executive director at Uplift commented: "You only have to look at the profits of the oil and gas companies to understand why our bills are going up. The UK's single biggest gas supplier, the Norwegian state firm Equinor, has made over £140 billion in profit since the start of the energy crisis.
"The soaring price of gas – and our high dependency on it – are at the root of our high energy bills. The price of gas is set by international markets over which we have no control.
"The truth is, after 50 years of drilling, the UK has burned most of its gas reserves. Opening new fields in the North Sea would give us a maximum of just three weeks of gas a year, assuming that none of it is exported. Most of what’s left in the basin is oil, most of which the UK exports."
Khan added: “The best way to lower energy costs for people is to tackle energy waste through insulating leaky homes, and rapidly scaling up homegrown renewables. The UK, and Scotland in particular, boasts some of the best wind resources in the world, which will provide us with energy security as the North Sea oil and gas basin declines.”
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: “Every family and business has paid the price of rising energy bills, which are a direct result of Britain’s vulnerability to volatile global gas markets.
“By failing to invest at scale over many years in the clean, secure, homegrown power our country needs, we have been left exposed to the consequences of events beyond our borders.
“The only way to bring down bills for good is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will ensure our energy security, protect consumers, create jobs and tackle the climate crisis.”
