SSE set for huge profit jump after hiking energy bills - Business News - Business - The Independent

SSE set for huge profit jump after hiking energy bills - Business News - Business - The Independent:

 Energy giant SSE is on track to make a profit of £1.54 billion this year two months after it announced a sharp hike in prices.

The news is likely to spark fresh anger following Labour calls for a cap on household gas and electricity bills as incomes continue to be squeezed.

SSE, which trades as Southern Electric, Swalec and Scottish Hydro, raised tariffs by an average of 8.2 per cent from November, blaming Government green levies as well as rising network costs and wholesale energy prices.

Bills will be cut by 3.5 per cent for all of the group's nine million residential customers from March 24 after the group passed on savings from the Government's green levy shake-up but it still means an overall above-inflation rise for hard-pressed households.

In a trading update, SSE's chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said that despite the "difficult business environment", it was encouraging that the group was on course to deliver more profits and cash for shareholders.