The energy crisis affects businesses as well as households

Yesterday morning we issued our updated forecasts for the Default Tariff Cap through to the end of 2023. They make for grim reading: from 1 October 2022 the Cap will average £3,500/year equivalent or so for at least a year, unless there is a collapse in the wholesale energy markets.

In contrast to households, and other than our own efforts, there has been strikingly little said about the affordability of business energy bills.

Related thinking

E-mobility and low carbon

2022’s most exciting ‘Charts of the Week’

Some of our team have looked back throughout 2022 and picked their most exciting ‘Chart of the Week’.​Their choices include exploring green tariffs, wholesale gas prices, CfD allocation round 4 and the MHHS Implementation Levy.  It’s My Birthday – Two years of Dynamic Containment Picked by Tom Faulkner, Head of...

Low carbon generation

RESS 3 consultation: DECC is listening, but the true test will be in the detail of the solutions incorporated 

The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) published the consultation for the third round of the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS 3) on 28 October 2022. Some of the issues drawn out in the consultation is a testimony that DECC has its ears on the ground and is...

Energy storage and flexibility

From zero to hero: Can CfDs split markets and reduce costs this winter?

Given media comment on the imposition of a revenue cap for low carbon generators instead of migration of existing projects onto a CfD, please find below a blog published by Cornwall Insight three weeks ago. Not only did this note the possibility of the revenue cap being a fall back...

Energy storage and flexibility

Electricity network reform: where are we now?

In its Energy Security Strategy (ESS), the UK government set out ambitions for 95% of electricity to be sourced from low carbon generation by 2030 and for the UK to have a fully decarbonised electricity system by 2035. In order to accommodate this ambition, the electricity network will need to...

Business supply and services

The Energy Price Guarantee, a Path Through Stormy Seas?

Upon taking office on 6 September 2022, the first piece of major policy introduced by the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is the Energy Price Guarantee (EPG), announced on 8 September 2022. The EPG is a series of support measures targeted at protecting domestic and business consumers from soaring energy...

Business supply and services

Great expectations – the complexity of delivering on the promise for business energy costs

Stories of hardship to businesses from rising energy prices have become much more prevalent in recent weeks as the critical 1 October date for new supply contracts looms. Our recent insight paper Weathering the storm: Mitigating the impact of energy price hikes for businesses set out some of the reasons...

Home supply and services

What is the price cap?

We release our price cap forecasts in the hope that we can encourage policy change.  We have created this infographic to help people understand the price cap and how we make our predictions. We would also like to clarify that we cannot influence Ofgem to change the amount of the price cap.  You...

Business supply and services

Ofgem reaches conclusion for the Microbusiness Strategic Review

The Microbusiness Strategic Review came to a close on 28 March 2022, with four finalised proposals from Ofgem that aim to protect microbusiness consumers and create a more robust framework through which the market can operate. Following the unprecedented rise in wholesale prices and recent geopolitical events, these changes are...