Department of Energy and Climate Change predicts 3.9 million households in England will fall into fuel poverty this year.
Nearly four million households are expected to fall into fuel poverty this year, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).
The number of UK households in fuel poverty dropped from 5.5 million in 2009 to 4.75 million in 2010, new figures show. But the improvement is not expected to continue.
The rise in energy prices last year is expected to increase the number of households in fuel poverty again, although the figures will not be published until 2013 and 2014, Decc said.
Projections for England indicated there were likely to be around 3.5 million fuel-poor households in 2011 and 3.9 million in 2012.
The reduction was mainly due to rising incomes, relatively stable energy prices at the time and reduced energy consumption, according to the 2012 Annual Report on Fuel Poverty released by the Decc.
