North East charity say people are still struggling to pay off last year's energy bills
Ofgem will announce the quarterly energy price cap update for the period from October 1 to December 31.
A North Shields community development charity fears that people will struggle to afford bills ahead of the Ofgem energy price cap.
According to the government, bills will be going up from the 1st October by about 9% for a typical household.
Wayne Dobson is the CEO of Cedarwood Trust and hopes that the announcement will protect those most vulnerable.
He said: "People are already struggling to afford those bills and with an increase of £146 a year, that's really going to push at people’s financial pace. People are already struggling with the cost of living.
"I was speaking to a family yesterday who were telling me that they've just had notification that their electricity bill was going up to £300 a month. That's almost half of what somebody's rent is in one of the properties close to where we are.
"There needs to be an understanding and some calculation within the government about what people can actually afford. We can no longer have a system where you just increase and increase and increase and expect people to find that money from somewhere.
"People are choosing between food, heating, social activities, whether to get rid of a car, reduce mobility, become more isolated in the home.
"The nourish store is open two days a week now, and each day we have a queue of about 50 people waiting to get those products. Also, we're getting inundated with a huge amount of people who are being affected by the Universal Credit transition and want support and advice around that."