 When Bridget Mead's husband passed away, she had few options. The retired dinner lady from Rochdale was living on a small pension and had a mortgage to cover. She went back to work - for another eight years.  "I couldn't have kept my house if I didn't go back to work," she said. "I''m very proud of that."  Now 75 and retired again, she has a different worry: her energy bill. Last month it jumped from ?97 to ?104 - a 7% increase. s She was one of millions to be hit by price increases pushed through by the "Big Six" energy suppliers.  For Mead, who gets by on a monthly pension of ?671, even a few extra pounds is tough. "I'm terrified. I don't know how I'm going to pay it, and they say it's going to go up again this winter," she said.  "It's not just me either. all my friends are terrified. They don't know where the money is going to come from."  We've had price rises before. This time, though, was different.  The outcry from politicians was predictable, but the tone was not. It was more strident than usual.  Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, accused the utilities of "predatory pricing". Ed Miliband, the opposition leader, called for them to be broken up. "The energy companies have defied gravity for too long ... Let's call a rigged market what it is," he said.  On Friday alistair Buchanan, head of Ofgem, the regulator for the gas and electricity markets, fired the latest salvo, publishing new figures that suggested the Big Six are now making as much as ?125 from each household, up from ?15 in July. The latest round of rises brought the average annual bill to ?1,345, nearly double the ?740 average of five years ago.  "a radical break with the past is needed," Buchanan said. The industry countered that the figures were vastly inflated.  What is certain is that the penny has finally dropped. One in four households is now "fuel poor", which means that more than 10% of its net income goes on energy bills. Things are going to get worse - and not just because unemployment last week hit a 17-year high.  Britain is on the cusp of a ?200 billion low-carbon overhaul.  The government wants to replace our dirty coal-fired stations with expensive offshore wind farms and nuclear reactors to meet climate change targets. The makeover is the biggest since North Sea oil and gas came on stream in the 1970s - and you and I will pay for it. analysts said the average domestic energy bill could hit ?1,800 a year by 2020.  after years of talk about the green revolution as a far-off eventuality, it has finally collided with the real world, and everyone is running for cover.  "It's here now. Cheques are going to have to be written to build this stuff," said Mark Powell at KPMG. "But the world has changed and all of a sudden the question of affordability has come front and centre."  That is what the government aims to tackle tomorrow. Huhne has called a "consumer energy summit" at his department's offices in Whitehall. The showdown will bring executives, consumer groups and Ofgem into the same room.  Ostensibly, the purpose is to hash out how to help the hardup get through the winter. Yet for the industry the meeting is about much more than the next few months. It is about one of the world's biggest industrial undertakings. It is about the government's faltering attempts to shape it, while at the same time bashing the industry for the inconvenient consequences of the very policies it has chosen to pursue.  The Big Six are tired of carrying the can. "We need an honest debate about the consequences of the investment required and the impact on bills," said Phil Bentley, managing director of British Gas, the country's biggest energy supplier.  "The energy industry isn't trusted and we accept we have to do something about that. But we also want honesty about the data. If the government is quoting misleading numbers, it makes everyone look stupid and confuses the public."  GEORGE OSBORNE, the chancellor, dropped a bombshell in Manchester this month. There he was at the Tory party conference, holding forth on his plan to revive the flagging economy. and then he said it. "We're not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business ... so let's at the very least resolve that we're going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe."  It was a stunning reversal. after all, it was the chancellor who just seven months earlier had unveiled a new carbon tax on industry, which would make Britain the first country in the world to impose a domestic carbon levy.  Civitas, the think tank, said it amounted to "economic suicide".  Industry revolted, and Osborne seems to have listened.  Yet just down the road from No 11, Huhne seems to have different ideas. In May the energy secretary made Britain the first country in the world to commit to emission reduction targets beyond 2020. By 2027, he wants us to halve carbon dioxide emissions from the 1990 level.  Osborne may be slowing down, but Huhne shows no such signs. an executive said: "The Treasury seems to be moving in one direction, while Huhne is going another. It's hard to tell who is actually driving the bus."  One thing they can both agree on, however, is that the energy companies deserve a good kicking. They haven't done themselves any favours. an investigation by Which?, the consumer group, found that when the Big Six were asked by callers for the lowest tariffs, a third of the time the best deals were not offered.  In an interview with The Sunday Times, Huhne said: "We know what's wrong with the energy market and we are addressing it. There have been clear examples of malpractice and Ofgem has found that people don't switch even though it could provide them with big savings.  "The best possible way to encourage investment and new entrants is a truly competitive and transparent market. We are doing everything we can to make it easier to invest here."  The heart of his plan is the so-called Electricity Market Reform, or EMR. First proposed last year, it is a cocktail of subsidies to support a new generation of low-carbon power sources, and harsh penalties designed to speed up the death of fossil-fuelled stations. Huhne wants it on the books by 2013.  There has yet to be a clear explanation, however, from government or industry of just how high prices are likely to go and why.  Take Ofgem's Friday report. The quarterly retail review was meant to be published in two weeks' time. When it hit the wires on Friday instead - three days before the Whitehall energy summit - it was hard to conclude that its publication wasn't orchestrated for maximum impact.  Volker Beckers, chief executive of Npower, accused the regulator of "playing games" and "deliberately confusing" customers about the profitability of the sector.  "Ofgem is claiming that energy companies are making just over ?9 profit on every ?100 we receive for getting energy to your doorstep, " he said. "Earlier this year, Ofgem's same analysis showed the industry was making just ?1.50 on every ?100; and that between 2004 and 2009 we were making a loss. These are not the figures associated with an industry that is profiteering or uncompetitive.  Publishing incorrect figures like this is counterproductive."  The consequences are more than a few hurt feelings and a bamboozled public. Last year the industry invested ?3 billion in new projects. If we are to meet the government's green goals, companies will have to invest nearly seven times that every year for a decade.  Uncertainty over whether the government will hold its nerve on subsidies, or slap windfall taxes on profits - as Osborne did earlier this year on oil companies - means investors are factoring in political risk. The price of money is going up. That helps nobody.  British Gas recently commissioned a survey of 2,000 Britons that asked a simple question: how many would be willing to pay another ?400 annually to ensure the lights stay on? The answer was 1%.  aBOUT 12 miles off the coast of Margate, Kent, a small fleet of special barges is h 