Households face soaring bills after aid is cut. But critics say carbon tax could help end fuel poverty

Fears that the Big Six energy firms are hitting vulnerable people with surprise huge bills for disputed charges were growing tonight, as an increasing number of people reported receiving letters out of the blue demanding hundreds or thousands of pounds due to past undercharging.

Energy supplier E.ON has been forced to hand over £1.7m to customers after it was caught overcharging.

Energy supplier E.ON has been forced to hand over £1.7m to customers after it was caught overcharging.

Energy company E.ON has been forced to hand over £1.7m to customers after it was caught overcharging.

Outlook Only a few days ago, the Government's civil nuclear new-build programme seemed in tatters. Horizon, a venture that plans to build plants in Anglesey and Gloucestershire for £15bn, had been dumped by German owners E.on and RWE as unaffordable; EDF's chief executive Vincent de Rivaz, who at Hinkley Point plans to build the country's first nuclear power station since the 1990s, was warring publicly with sceptical MPs.

Rolls-Royce is talking to Hitachi about becoming an investor in the next generation of nuclear power stations after the Japanese company agreed to buy the Horizon nuclear project for about £700m today.

The US-Japanese joint venture bidding to build nuclear power plants in the UK could struggle to rush its reactor designs through Britain's notoriously lengthy licensing process.

The US-Japanese joint venture bidding to build nuclear power plants in the UK could struggle to rush its reactor designs through Britain's notoriously lengthy licensing process.

Security at Sweden's three nuclear power plants has been tightened after explosives were found on a truck at Ringhals atomic power station in the south-west of the country.

Sweden has raised the security level at its nuclear power plants after explosives were found on a truck at the south-western Ringhals atomic power station.

Energy giant E.ON today reassured its five million customers after it pledged to keep residential energy prices on hold this year.

Outlook Utilities aren't usually regarded as exciting but they're doing their best to change that. In the City there's an entertaining little face-off between the French giant GDF Suez, which owns most of International Power, and its minority shareholders who have clearly had enough of utilities being sold off on the cheap.

Ofgem has opened an investigation into energy supplier E.ON to establish whether it is complying with selling obligations, the regulator has announced.