EDF announces energy price hike affecting 1.3m UK households

The move follows a similar announcement by British Gas earlier this week

Consumers are seeing a number of providers increasing bills (Reuters)

EDF Energy has announced it is raising the price of its standard bill by 1.4 per cent, bringing costs up for 1.3 million households from June.

The energy provider said it would increase its standard variable electricity tariff by £16 a year, taking the dual fuel cost for an average household to £1,158 per year. The company said there would be no change to gas prices.

There will also be an increase in the charges for customers choosing to pay by cash or cheque by £6 per fuel per year, “to be closer to the real cost of serving these customers”, the group said. The change means a dual fuel standard variable customer choosing to pay by cash or cheque will see a combined increase of £28, or 2.3 per cent, a year to £1,248 a year.

Beatrice Bigois, EDF’s managing director of customers, said: “We know that price rises are not welcome and we have worked to offset rising energy and policy charges by cutting our own costs. However, these rising costs mean we will be increasing our standing charge for electricity on 7 June, affecting around 40 per cent of our customers.

“Most of our customers, those on a fixed tariff, or who have a direct debit gas only account, a safeguard tariff or prepayment meter, will be unaffected by this change. We will be writing to affected customers this month to encourage them to choose a fixed price tariff or to pay by direct debit to save on their bills.”

The move follows a similar announcement by British Gas on Tuesday, which said the company would raise prices by an average of 5.5 per cent next month, taking the price of its standard tariff to £1,161 for a typical dual fuel customer.