Energy provider websites struggle to cope with ‘bleak Friday’ traffic as prices rise

theguardian.com:

The websites of energy providers are struggling to cope with a deluge of traffic on “bleak Friday”, as the largest increase in gas and electricity prices in living memory takes effect on the same day as a string of scheduled rises to taxes and household services.

Customers seeking to secure cheaper energy bills had been advised to submit meter readings online before Friday’s 54% increase to the cap on the average annual bill rises to £1,971, putting unprecedented pressure on the websites of suppliers.

The meter reading page of British Gas, one of Britain’s biggest suppliers, was displaying an error message on Friday morning, while E.ON and EDF were also battling with outages.

Multiple scheduled price increases, from council tax and VAT on pints to broadband and phone bills, are adding to the cost of living crisis, with inflation forecast to hit a 40-year high later this year.

As snow and hail fell across the UK during a week when temperatures plunged, families and pensioners spoke of having to turn off the heating and disconnect broadband connections in order to afford the rising cost of food.

The thinktank the Resolution Foundation said the number of English households in “fuel stress” doubled overnight, from 2.5m to 5m.

The Trades Union Congress called for an emergency budget to help working families who are at “breaking point”, as Citizens Advice estimated that about 5 million people will be unable to pay their energy bills from this month.

The TUC said that the measures announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak in last week’s spring statement were “woefully inadequate”, as UK households face the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s.

“People shouldn’t be struggling to cover the basics, but millions of families have been