Energy bills unlikely to exceed £500 next year: expert

Angela Knight had good news for consumers and said we are in a much better position than EU

ENERGY bills are likely to come down after hitting an average of £500 a month in January, according to former Energy UK CEO Angela Knight.

Asked if bills could exceed £500 next year, she told GB News: “I don’t think they’re likely to be worse, no.

“Putin’s going to play this for every last penny he possibly can. And that’s why actually one of the things that I do keep saying, however awful and stupid it might sound, is if we can keep the temperature down of the debate here, at least that pulls the psychological rug out from underneath him, because we can do things to will help ourselves.

“There’s some technical stuff which I won’t go into now but it’ll assist on both with gas and particularly electricity on pricing.

“We can take further action for the purposes of protecting particularly those who are at the poor end of society from finding themselves in an impossible situation, by paying for their gas and electricity this winter.

“We can also put both a short and medium programme in place so everybody knows the steps that we the UK are taking both to help our own energy security both gas and electricity, and assist on pricing.”

Asked if we are in the same situation as Germany, which has introduced some rationing of energy, she said: “No, we’re not in the same situation as Germany.

“That doesn’t mean that we should be sitting comfortably. But what it does mean is that we have our direct access to the North Sea because we take what 50% of our gas out of the part of the North Sea which is inside UK waters.

“We have those long term agreements with Norway, and much more. We’ve also again built long term agreements to bring in LNG – that’s natural gas and liquefied form – and you need special terminals in your harbours in order to unload that and gasify it.

“So, in respect of the situation that we’re in, compared with Germany, which is so dependent on gas from Russia, which didn’t have the other arrangements and didn’t have or doesn’t have anything like enough LNG.

“We’re sitting in a more comfortable situation. In no way does that mean that it’s perfect for anybody in Europe or indeed in many other countries outside Europe as well, because of the impact of the Russian Ukrainian war and the way that Russia is using gas both as an economic weapon, but also a psychological weapon.

“It’s going to upset everybody right now, it’s something we can’t run away from. We know that costs are going to be there.

“How we address the cost, who pays how much for what, are questions which need to be answered again in the autumn, but energy security as it relates to gas, I think we are in an adequate not a great position, but an adequate position.”