Ofgem have admitted that they may look into rising direct debit demands from energy companies, even though they have said there was “no quantified evidence indicating misuse of direct debit schemes”.

This comes even thought the company is denying claims from an MP that firms were raising their direct debit payments when customers are in credit to boost cash flow.

There is currently pressure on energy firms to lower their prices in the New Year, after they have been raised twice in 2008, and the head regulator of Ofgem has told MPs that he expects this to happen.

On average, a household’s gas and electricity bill rose by over £300 in 2008, but some direct debit customers of lenders say they have been paying more in recent months.

Millions pay their gas and electricity bills via direct debit and are therefore unclear as to how much exactly they are spending each month.

Peter Luff, Conservative MP and chairman of the Business and Enterprise Select Committee, has warned that several companies may be raising their direct debit payments even when customers’ accounts were in credit.

Earlier this week the Energy Retail Association denied all claims, saying that: “what energy companies are trying to do is make sure you get a balanced account that is zero or as close to zero as possible after you’ve had the biggest bill.”

After recent falls in wholesale prices of gas and electricity, energy companies have been pressured to lower their prices.

On Monday this week, Chancellor Alistair Darling acknowledged in his pre-Budget report speech, that there was concern that wholesale prices would not be reflected very quickly enough in household bills, announcing that Ofgem would produce a report every three months on any price changes.

He also announced that these reports would be used to govern whether there were unfair gaps in pricing between different payment methods.

Yesterday, British Gas announced that they would be narrowing the price difference between their pre-payment meter bills and other forms of payment, such as direct debit bills. This could lead to a £22 average cut in the yearly bill of a dual fuel pre-payment meter customer.

British gas electricity customers will pay the same as a quarterly cash or cheque tariff.

Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem chief executive has told Business and Energy Select Committee that regulator the company was putting as much pressure as possible on major gas and electricity suppliers to make announcements about their bills soon.

He also said that there was no evidence of any price-fixing cartel among the biggest suppliers, and that none of the major suppliers had dropped their prices recently after they put bills up earlier in the year in order to reflect wholesale costs.

The UK’s second largest energy company, Scottish and Southern Energy, revealed earlier this month that it was optimistic about domestic prices being cut in 2009 if the wholesale prices of gas and electricity continued to fall.

Much smaller company, First:Utility, has said this week that they will drop priced in response to the falling wholesale costs.