Energy firm ScottishPower is to reduce dual-fuel prices by 3.3% from January 31 as it passes on savings from the Government's green levy shake-up.
The change will benefit 2.2 million households and reduce typical bills by around £42 to £1,199 a year for those paying by direct debit.
There will also be a £12 rebate to all customers for the Warm Home Discount, which the Government has said will be funded through general taxation instead of through levies on energy bills.
The tariff cut will only partly reverse increases of 8.5% and 9% for gas and electricity respectively that ScottishPower hit customers with a month ago.
And 97% of customers on fixed-price products will not see their bills fall as the company said they were already protected from the rising cost of green levies.
The cut comes a week after Labour called on ScottishPower and rivals npower and SSE to immediately reduce prices for households after the Government cut the cost of the Energy Company Obligation and asked electricity distribution companies to take action to reduce network costs.
British Gas has already reduced prices in response, announcing in early December that it would cut bills by 3.2% on New Year's Day, scaling back hikes that saw prices go up by 10.4% for electricity and 8.4% for gas in November.
EDF and E.ON took the levy changes into account in the recent round of price rises, increasing tariffs on average by 3.9% and 3.7% respectively - far less than the increases announced by rivals.
SSE and npower are expected to follow ScottishPower by passing on levy savings. They have already committed to cutting bills, but have yet to confirm how much or when the changes would take effect.
Scottish Power said it would try to avoid any further price rises in 2014, but said this will depend on whether there are increases in wholesale energy prices or other costs outside of its control.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article