The cap is going up 13%.
Gas is doing the damage.
Ofgem confirmed yesterday that the price cap rises 13% on 1 July. That is about £18 a month for a typical household. But the average hides the story: gas is up 24% and electricity is up 5%. Those two numbers are not the same story, and pretending they are is how people end up making the wrong decision.
🌍 Why it went up
Wholesale gas got more expensive, driven by the conflict in the Middle East. Britain does not buy much gas from that region directly, which people always point out as if it settles the matter. It does not.
Gas is a global market. If a cargo bound for Asia gets more expensive, the cargo bound for Britain gets more expensive too, because the seller has options and you are one of them. Distance is irrelevant. Price is a rumour that travels at the speed of light.
So a pipeline you have never heard of, in a country you will never visit, moved the number on your direct debit.
⚡ Why electricity barely moved
Electricity went up 5%. It went up at all because gas plants still set the price in a lot of hours, and gas got dearer.
It did not go up 24% because a growing chunk of British electricity now comes from wind, solar and nuclear, none of which care what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. The wind does not have a spot price.
That gap, 24% against 5%, is the whole energy transition compressed into one Ofgem press release. Every year that gap gets wider.
🧾 What the 13% actually is
The 13% is a blend. If you heat with gas and cook with gas, you are nearer the 24% end and your July is going to be worse than the headline suggested.
If you have already electrified your heating, you are nearer the 5% end, and this news is much duller for you. Which is the point.
And roughly 22 million accounts, about 40% of the market, are on fixed tariffs and will feel precisely nothing on 1 July. We will come back to that on the 8th, because it is more complicated than it sounds.
The cap goes up on 1 July whether or not you read this. What changes between now and then is whether the electricity you do use is bought at 3am for pennies or at 7pm for a fortune. That part is still yours to decide, and it is the only part of this you actually control.