Energy firm E.ON has announced it is increasing its standard variable electricity and gas prices.

On 16th August 2018 the unit price of E.ON's standard variable tariff, E.ON EnergyPlan, will increase by an average of 4.8% or £55 for customers taking both fuels, 6.2% or £36 for electricity only customers and 3.3% or £19 for gas only customers.

Michael Lewis, Chief Executive of E.ON UK, said: "We had hoped that by making the structural changes we made earlier this year, impacting bills by around £22 a year, we could avoid an increase in our unit price. Those changes applied to all tariffs, not just our standard variable tariff, and reflected cost changes as we saw them at the time as well as bringing our tariff structure in line with most of the market.

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"However as was seen in relation to the increases in the regulated prepayment cap in April, a number of costs have risen quite sharply and in particular we’ve experienced a hike in the price we have to pay for the energy our customers need, partly driven by the Beast from the East and extreme weather conditions experienced earlier this year. Through advanced purchases we had been able to shield our customers from some, but not all, of this impact.

"We'll continue proactively to tell customers about the different tariffs on offer and encourage them to move to those tariffs, as well as promoting the different services that can potentially help bring their bills down such as a smart meter, a more efficient boiler or better insulation."