Ofgem has hired an executive of a failed energy supplier Colorado Energy as Deputy Director to lead its work on the energy price cap.

Daniel Norton, former Commercial Director of Colorado Energy has already started on his new role.

Last month, Colorado Energy ceased to trade leaving 15,000 customers behind – the company’s General Manager explained that surviving during the period that the energy market is being by soaring energy prices had become ‘unsustainable’.

Mr Norton had previously worked for Centrica and he was the main witness in winning the judicial review against the change in the methodology of the first price cap period.

Ofgem’s new Deputy Director for price cap predicted that the price cap will “go up a lot” in April.

He wrote: “We are already 62% through the pricing-in period for the April-22 cap and half of the days have seen gas prices over 100p/th. Even without any changes to the methodology, the cap will go up a lot.

“Many households will struggle to absorb this increase. We can’t lose sight of that when we are discussing how best to allow suppliers to recover their costs.

“But in the long run consumers are best served by a healthy and diverse mix of suppliers and too many good companies have been forced out of the market already.”