Green levies on energy bills to double by 2020, official estimates show Some of the policies are expected to have the effect of slightly reducing wholesale power prices, but this will lessen the overall impact by just £5 today and £17 by 2030, the analysis shows. Five quick tricks saved this family £400 a year on household bills Ministers insisted that the overall effect of all Government policies would be to leave energy consumers significantly better off, due to efficiency schemes and other regulation that should result in households using less energy. A typical household's gas usage is expected to fall by 5 per cent and electricity usage by 14 per cent by 2020 as a result of the policies. This should more than outweigh the cost of all the green levies, and the funding of energy efficiency schemes, leading to average bills that are £50 lower than today and £92 lower than they would otherwise have been, ministers claimed. But critics warned that the efficiency savings were not guaranteed, would require households to spend huge sums on new energy-efficient equipment, and would vary greatly from house to house, with some missing out on schemes altogether. "It's all very well the Government saying that because of its policies energy bills will be coming down, but these heroic assumptions rely upon hundreds of thousands of households buying new energy efficient fridges and washing machines," Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which? said. Ministers calculate a household will save £276 through using less energy by 2020, compared with a world without Government policies. This includes savings of £30 due to buying more efficient TVs and £25 from upgrading consumer electronics. It also assumes savings of £26 from households voluntarily opting to use less energy after having "smart meters" installed that show their consumption, and £47 in efficiency savings as a result of energy efficiency schemes prior to 2013. Peter Atherton, energy analyst at Liberum Capital, said the estimates of the impacts of renwables were "disingenuous" and noted energy prices would still have to rise to pay for the new subsidies, even if overall bills didn't. "The unit cost will be rising very steeply but people will just use less of it," he said. The £92 estimated savings for 2020 are already significantly less than a £166 saving estimated in a report last year, largely because gas prices are no longer expected to rise as much as had been thought. "Feed-in-tariffs" (subsidies for household renewables) 2014: £9 2020: £14 2030: £13 "Renewables Obligation" (subsidies for large wind, solar, biomass) 2014: £36 2020: £48 2030: £30 "Contracts for difference" (subsidies for wind, solar, biomass and nuclear) 2014: £0 2020: £30 2030: £89 "Capacity market" (subsidies for power plants to back up intermittent renewables) 2014: £0 2020: £12 2030: £14 Carbon taxes 2014: £7 for EU tax, £16 for UK 2020: £7 for EU tax, £30 for UK 2030: £80 across EU and UK taxes The Department of Energy and Climate Change assumes these policies will also go some way to dampen wholesale prices