E.ON will hit nearly 2m households with a 4.8% price rise, as it became the first of the big six suppliers to put up energy bills for a second time this year.
Some of the German firm’s customers had already been struck in April with a stealth increase of up to £50.
The new price rise adds a further £55 a year for a typical dual fuel customer from 16 August, and could signal the start of a new round of increases.
Shell-owned First Utility and fast-growing challenger supplier Bulb both announced price rises last week, which take effect later this summer.
E.ON blamed higher wholesale energy costs, which it said had increased by more than a fifth since its last big price rise in 2017.
Michael Lewis, the E.ON UK chief executive, said: “A number of costs have risen quite sharply and in particular we’ve experienced a hike in the price we have to pay for the energy our customers need, partly driven by the beast from the east and extreme weather conditions experienced earlier this year.”
A customer with typical energy consumption will now face an annual bill of £1,208 after the rise.
Victoria Arrington, spokesperson for comparison site Energyhelpine said: “This new rise is a bitter and expensive pill to swallow.”
The timing of the rise risks creating a political backlash, as the energy regulator Ofgem is bringing in the government’s cap on standard variable tariffs by the end of the year. MoneySuperMarket said the cap would not be enough to compensate households hit by price hikes.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
