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  Energy firms: Big Six profits rise from £30 to £105 per UK household - more than threefold in three years
  
  New data demolishes companies' claims that price hikes are beyond their control
  
  Claims by the Big Six energy companies that price hikes are beyond their control have been demolished by new data showing the average profit they make per household has more than tripled in three years.
  
  The amount the firms make from selling gas and electricity soared from £30 per household in 2011 to £53 last year - and it is now estimated to have increased again, to about £105, according to Ofgem.
  
  As a result, the total profit that British Gas, Scottish Power, SSE, EDF, npower and E-on make from households leapt by 75 per cent last year to £1.2bn. This looks set to rise by even more in 2013, to somewhere in the region of £2bn.
  
  "There is some evidence of rising profit margins," market regulator Ofgem said. "This rise has been due to a combination of higher prices and volumes rather than lower costs."
  
  TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said Ofgem's figures demonstrated that the Big Six had been disingenuous in blaming bill rises on factors such as the cost of green levies to insulate houses and rising wholesale gas prices. She called on the Government to intervene to keep bills down.

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