Bulb hints at third price rise this year

Bulb has indicated another price rise may be on the cards in November  – which would be a third increase by the supplier within a year.

On its website’s ‘energy price watch’ page, the dual-fuel retailer said a rise in wholesale costs was behind the announcement and outlined the reasons.

It pointed to how hot weather had affected wind generation across Europe, resulting in a rise in electricity prices. And, while use has been low, it said demand to put gas into storage for winter had also kept gas prices high.

Additionally, lower and warmer water levels had also affected the nuclear industry in France, it said. As France exports most of its energy to its European neighbours, a reduction in output had therefore pushed prices up across the continent.

Bulb added that shipments of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe had fallen over the past couple months as a result of hot weather in Asia, increasing the air-conditioning demand there.

“The UK has been exporting gas to Europe to fill the storage facilities. While storage levels continue to catch up to where they were at this point last year, prices remain high in the meantime.

“We expect gas prices to stabilise in October when storage facilities are full.”

If the rise goes ahead it will be the third such move by the supplier this year.

Prices were last raised by the green energy supplier by 5.1 per cent in June as a result of “increasing wholesale energy price costs” which rose by 21 per cent since February.

In February a rise of 2.8 per cent was announced, again due to rising wholesale costs.

Earlier this month industry regulator Ofgem announced it was raising its safeguard tariff due to higher wholesale gas and electricity costs since the level was last updated in February.