In this week’s Gossage, our columnist assesses whether ever-increasing energy bills are being exacerbated by network costs.
The official line from industry regulator Ofgem is clear – electricity prices are increasing massively again this September, largely because of ‘inflation in international energy prices’. However, a closer look at some of the obscurer graphs concerning DNOs published by the regulator does suggest that there may well be one or two other important contributory causes rather closer to home.
One reveals that network costs have risen by a massive 39%, from an average £268 in the 2021/22 winter up to £371 from April 2022. Given the push for electrical heat pumps which have a much higher instantaneous demand for electricity than gas-heated boilers, then the network cost is only going to increase again in the next DNO price control.