Green taxes ‘to increase energy bills by a third by 2020’ 

Green taxes will push up the average family energy bill by almost a third to £1,900 by 2020, according to research.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance predicts that green charges and tax will comprise £620 of a typical UK household’s electrcity and gas bill by the end of the decade.

Green charges, which are used to fund wind and hydropower projects, and VAT currently make up 11pc of gas bills, or £91 of an average £830 statement. They account for 16pc of electricity charges, equivalent to £100 of the £630 average bill.

However, Liberum Capital analysts expect green policies to push power costs up 29pc by the end of the decade. This means the average electricity bill hitting £812, of which £285 would be green taxes and VAT. The Taxpayers’ Alliance believes gas bills will jump to £1,070, making the total average bill almost £1,900.

The Government said green expenditure will be offset by consumer savings.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance also launched an “Energy Swindle” campaign “urging the Government to cut energy taxes that are adding record amounts to family and business energy bills”.

It called on the Government to cut “unsustainable” subsidies for “expensive” sources of energy such as wind turbines and to scrap the carbon price floor for the EU Emissions Trading System and to stop blocking “new affordable energy sources” like British shale gas and efficient modern coal power plants.

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Families and businesses are struggling with their electricity and gas bills. Politicians should be cutting energy taxes to ease that burden. Instead they are adding to them on an enormous scale to pay for fat subsidies that support expensive energy sources like wind turbines and solar panels.

“People who are already finding it hard to pay their bills will not be able to cope with the big increases in prices needed to meet draconian targets for the energy sector. We cannot allow more families to suffer needlessly and more jobs to be driven overseas thanks to high prices here in Britain. It is time to stop the energy swindle.”

It has set up the website energyswindle.org which also allows consumers to calculate how much of their gas and elecitricity bills is made up of taxes.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change said it was the global gas price, not green subsidies, that had been primarily pushing up energy bills, accounting for 60pc of the increase in bills between 2010 and 2012. It said Britian needed to invest in “home grown alternatives” to protect bill payers from price volatility.

A report published last month by Consumer Futures, a statutory organisation set up to represent consumer interests in regulated markets, warned that the cost of funding subisidies would fall hardest on those most reliant on electricity rather than gas.

“The Hardest Hit” analysis also warned the Government its estimates of savings from encouraging consumers to use more energy efficient products and appliances were “unduly optimistic”.