Price cap down, bills up anyway. Welcome to the complexities of today’s energy market. Until the cap takes another lurch downwards – expected to happen from July when the backward-looking formula fully catches up with lower wholesale gas prices – the relevant measure for most households remains the government’s “energy price guarantee”, or EPG.
On current plans, the EPG will rise from £2,500 to £3,000 in April; and critically, the universal £400 subsidies will be yanked away at the same time. So, even if one can confidently predict some relief in bills from mid-summer, the next leg of the energy crisis will be harder than the last. In the circumstances, the calls from the campaigner Martin Lewis and many others for an extension to the support scheme are compelling.
