A NEW “price cap” on energy bills is expected to leave 27 million domestic customers still paying double the amount they were paying in 2020, campaigners have warned.

And in a double whammy, taxpayers will still fund any subsidies to customers’ bills handed by the government to profiteering suppliers.

British households now pay the world’s highest prices for gas and electricity.

In March, the average household annual energy bill was £2,100.

Though energy regulator Ofgem will announce a new price cap, the Energy Price Guarantee, on Thursday, analysis by Cornwall Insight has found that it will reduce bills to £2,063 — a reduction of just £37 a year.

The firm also expects future price caps to set average energy bills at £2,098 from October 1, rising to £2,163 from January 1 2024.

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition said the figures means that from July 1, energy bills will be double what they were in 2020, 62 per cent higher than before the invasion of Ukraine and are on track to be 3 per cent higher in real terms than they were last winter.

Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said: “The latest price cap will send a chill down the spine of customers.

“People now face many more months with bills remaining stubbornly high.

“This will see them continue to use up their savings for everyday items, run up credit card bills, fall into debt with energy firms or turn to foodbanks as the cost-of-living crisis deepens.”

Uplift director Tessa Khan, whose organisation is part of the Warm This Winter campaign, said: “Britain’s broken energy system is set to cause another winter of misery, with fuel poverty affecting many of the most vulnerable.

“But as people continue to struggle through the energy bills crisis, the energy producers will continue to reap record profits.”

Research for the Warm This Winter campaign has found that over nine million adults spent last winter in cold, damp homes and official figures show that cases of hypothermia, dangerous loss of body heat, surged by 36 per cent.