Government to push for cheaper electricity and gas
Published on : 17/07/2009
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The UK government is set to shake up energy industry regulation in the hope it will stimulate competition and mean cheaper electricity and gas for consumers.
According to Whitehall, anti-competitive practices are pushing up wholesale prices by hundreds of millions of pounds.
Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said Ofgem, the energy regulator, would be given greater powers including new financial penalties.
Commenting on the new measures, Ofgem said the "stronger powers to tackle abuse in the wholesale electricity market, which could add hundreds of millions of pounds a year to electricity costs" were a welcome move from the government.
Meanwhile, people considering switching their electricity supplier, may be interested to hear that Mr Miliband believes energy prices will not go up because of the cost of migrating to a green energy infrastructure until 2015.
Between 2015 and 2020, the climate change secretary said prices would climb by an average of six per cent – or £75 a year.
