The Consumer Council's Home Energy Index states that the Government Energy Price Guarantee "artificially lowered gas and electricity prices from 1 November 2022 until 30 June 2023"1. The scheme ran for eight months, ending on 30 June 20231.
The index tracks changes in household gas, electricity and home heating oil prices in Northern Ireland, with a base period of January 2016 set at 1001. Gas and electricity tariffs are recorded every month and home heating oil prices every week, from different suppliers across Northern Ireland1. Prices are weighted for usage and market share of suppliers, and a composite index combines all three fuels into one figure1.
The index is particularly sensitive to home heating oil, because approximately 62.5% of households in Northern Ireland have oil central heating1. The Council changed the weightings within the index in November 2023 to reflect the growing use of natural gas central heating systems1. Its other data sources were last updated in October 2022, and the index is based on suppliers' standard tariffs only, for greater consistency1.
"The Index encompasses the impact of the Government Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) that artificially lowered gas and electricity prices from 1 November 2022 until 30 June 2023."
The Energy Price Guarantee is described by the Council as having artificially lowered prices, meaning the index numbers for the period reflect a supported price rather than the price the market would otherwise have produced1. The Council does not publish, in this page, the index values for the guarantee period, so the size of that effect is not reported here.
Why it matters for households
The guarantee period sits inside the index as a distortion. For a household looking at how its energy bills relate to energy independence, the eight months from November 2022 to June 2023 are not a clean reading of what gas and electricity cost, because the state met part of the difference1. Comparisons that run across the end of the scheme, or that set the guarantee period against today, compare a supported price with an unsupported one.
The Northern Ireland picture also differs from Great Britain in one respect the Council sets out: heating is dominated by oil, not gas, and the index is weighted accordingly1. The guarantee covered gas and electricity, so a household heating with oil did not receive the same support through that route, and the index reflects that split through its weighting1. How UK domestic prices compare with Europe over the same period is a separate question, and the Council's page does not address it.
What happens next
No next steps are set out on the Council's page. The guarantee itself ended on 30 June 20231. The index weightings were changed in November 20231. The Council's other data sources were last updated in October 20221. No further revision date is given.
Sources1 cited
- Home Energy Index | Consumer Council, consumercouncil.org.uk