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Fuel Prices

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Most of this site is dedicated to giving its visitors useful indicative cost information related to the use of energy in and around your place of residence.  Depending upon what is within your control where you live, it is hoped that this information will help you save money and help you make sensible cost based decisions regarding what equipment to invest in, to reduce costs.

Getting to the actual cost of energy in your area, in you type of accommodation and with consideration for your personal circumstances is close to impossible because there is so much variety. The best that can be achieved is to have an average for each major fuel type. For those of you that are interested the range of prices in the UK for most fuels is presented in the table below . It should be noted that the values presented here vary with time and the cost of fuel in the overall economy, as a consequence these values are regularly updated and as they are updated all the costs in the site change automatically.

The most accessible figures are for  electricity and natural gas since these are the main sources of energy for most households in the UK.  Using the BERR (Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform) quarterly review, the following tables summarise the three main billing methods and provide the largest and smallest unit rates in the UK and then the average of these.  The total annual rates are based on the average use per household in the UK. Prepayment was a lot more expensive in 2008 it appears to have reduced dramatically this is good news since typically those who can least afford it were forced onto expensive prepayment tarrifs!

The prices currently in use on this site are in the bar chart below, they include VAT and delivery where appropriate.

energy prices kWh gas electricity kerosene fuel oil wood biomass LPG coal smokeless propane butane

Last Updated 1th February 2012
ELECTRIC Standard Credit
Direct Debit Prepayment (meter)

Unit (kWh) cost Average annual cost Unit (kWh) cost
Average annual cost Unit (kWh) cost
Average annual cost
Highest 17.06 pence £ 563 15.27 pence £ 504 16.91 pence £ 558
Lowest 12.88 pence £ 4.25 11.67 pence £ 385 13.31 pence £ 439
Average 14.29 pence £ 472 13.2 pence £ 436 14.64 pence £ 483
An average annual energy consumption of 3,300 kWh is assumed for all calculations, and all figures include VAT

Last Updated 1th February 2012
GAS Standard Credit
Direct Debit 
Prepayment (meter)
  Unit (kWh) cost
Average annual cost Unit (kWh) cost
Average annual cost Unit (kWh) cost
Average annual cost
Highest 4.62 pence £ 831 4.2 pence £ 755 4.35 pence £ 782
Lowest 3.87 pence £ 696 3.57 pence £ 574 3.89 pence £ 700
Average 4.15 pence £ 747 3.89 pence £ 700 4.13 pence £ 743
An average annual energy consumption of 18,000 kWh is assumed for all calculations, and all figures include VAT

Direct debit payment and standard credit are equally used as payment methods for both electricity and gas, and about 15% use prepayment meters.  The figure used for the electrical unit price and the gas unit price in this site is half way between the direct debit tariff and the standard tariff and is currently

  • £ 0.137 per unit (1 kWh) for electricity, last updated  1th February 2012
  • £ 0.041 per unit (1 kWh) for gas, last updated 1th February 2012

Almost all other energy sources are used for heating and hot water, and this is a huge and very important cost element in your accommodation. The table below shows all the heating fuels in common use, there are others (corn pellets, wood chip and even cow dung!) but we only show the main ones in use in the UK. For consistency and sensible comparison with electricity the final price of energy is given as pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). For further clarity this is the amount of potential energy in the fuel, and not the energy delivered from an appliance, it is therfore important that the efficiency of the heating application is also factored into cost calculations within the site and you will see efficiency factors in some of the tables.

Heating Fuels Range of Prices Energy Average Price Used in the Site
Low High
Gas Unit £ 0.039 per unit £ 0.042 per unit 1 kWh per unit £ 0.041 per kWh
Heating Oil (kerosene) litre £ 0.58 per litre3 £ 0.61 per litre3 10 kWh per litre £ 0.062 per kWh
Wood Log 50kg bag £ 10 per bag £ 20 per bag 3 kWh per kg £ 0.1 per kWh
Wood Chip ton £ 90 per ton £ 100 per ton 3 kWh per kg £ 0.032 per kWh
Wood Pellet ton £ 220 per ton £ 233 per ton 4.5 kWh per kg £ 0.05 per kWh
Coal 50kg bag £ 15 per bag £ 20 per bag 9 kWh per kg £ 0.039 per kWh
Smokeless Coal 50kg bag £ 16 per bag £ 21 per bag 6 kWh per kg £ 0.053 per kWh
Bulk LPG litre £ 0.5 per litre £ 0.5 per litre 7.08 kWh per litre £ 0.074 per kWh
Butane* 4.5 kg Cylinder £ 16 per cylinder £ 16 per cylinder 13.7 kWh per kg £ 0.26 per kWh
  7 kg Cylinder £ 17.99 per cylinder £ 21.5 per cylinder 13.7 kWh per kg £ 0.206 per kWh
  15 kg Cylinder £ 33 per cylinder £ 33 per cylinder 13.7 kWh per kg £ 0.161 per kWh
Propane* 3.9 kg Cylinder £ 15.5 per cylinder £ 15.5 per cylinder 13.9 kWh per kg £ 0.286 per kWh
  6 kg Cylinder £ 18.5 per cylinder £ 20 per cylinder 13.9 kWh per kg £ 0.231 per kWh
  13 kg Cylinder £ 25.5 per cylinder £ 25.5 per cylinder 13.9 kWh per kg £ 0.141 per kWh
  19 kg Cylinder £ 35 per cylinder £ 35 per cylinder 13.9 kWh per kg £ 0.133 per kWh
  47 kg Cylinder £ 60 per cylinder £ 65 per cylinder 13.9 kWh per kg £ 0.096 per kWh

*Please note that there is usually a rental charge for cylinders of gas of about £ 30.

The prices currently in use on this site are in the bar chart below.



 
Comments (15)
your site
15 Saturday, 04 February 2012 08:21
Jo Grevette
Found your site by chance - very informative and clear.
Is a price update due in the near future?
14 Friday, 06 January 2012 17:42
Richard
thanks for the comments Patrick. Yes a price update is due by the end of January, hope that is soon enough
Cheers
Richard
Is a price update due in the near future?
13 Thursday, 05 January 2012 21:56
Patrick Allfrey
Glad to have found the site
it takes most of the mystery out of the subject.
The major suppliers as so reluctant to explain anything.
It appears even their staff are kept in the dark (no pun intended)
Thanks for the obvious work that has been undertaken.
Happy New Year.
cost of bulk LPG
12 Thursday, 05 January 2012 18:35
Richard
good question john.
the prices are based on the cost of the fuel alone. So I guess an ROI calculation is required to calculate the cost profile with a storage tank install. I will get hold of some numbers for this when I get back to the UK
cost of bulk LPG
11 Wednesday, 04 January 2012 16:00
john hunter
Hello,

Does the cost of the above per kwh include an estimate for the cost of installation/rental of the tank, or is it for the gas only?

Cheers

John
Wood Briquettes
10 Thursday, 24 November 2011 08:30
Golden Coals
Hello Everyone
We have several independent reviews that show biomass wood briquettes (Golden Coals) outperform traditional coals and logs in multi-fuel stoves and wood/ log burners. The heat output is similar to coal and higher than logs. Low moisture means a healthier chimney/ flue and fewer sweeps. Low ash content at around 0.7% and our product is 100% eco-friendly. The residue is perfect as a garden fertiliser. The cost can be as low as 24.8p/ Kg (domestic supply). If you want to find out more, please visit www.goldencoals.com
Thank you for your time and we wish you a warm and economical winter.
Golden Coals
thanks and calculator
9 Thursday, 10 November 2011 12:24
Richard
Thanks for the comments
I have recoded the calculator using Java instead of Javascript, it should now be more robust. I will also refine it a bit later, it outputs too many decimal place at the moment!
Cheers
Richard
ELECTRICAL ENERGY COST CALCULATOR 2 not working
8 Friday, 28 October 2011 08:37
Amanda
Hi,

Great information thank you. When will you next be updating? Also, the calculator doesn't seem to work.

Kind Regards,


Amanda.
Excellent resource
7 Wednesday, 29 June 2011 08:54
Excellent resource, a great help in planning the household budget, thanks!
Finally
6 Tuesday, 22 March 2011 12:19
It used to irritate me too, thats why I decideded to relate everything on this site to actual current price data. It is amazing how fast pages go out of date if this is not done

cheers

Richard
Finally
5 Monday, 21 March 2011 14:46
Hey many thanks for this.

I wouldn't usually leave a comment but was so happy to finally find a website that gave average energy prices per KWh. Keep updating when possible.

Thanks again.
Fuel Prices
4 Tuesday, 25 January 2011 18:21
Could you please add night rate electricity (Economy 7) as this is important if you are not on mains gas

Thanks
prices on site
3 Monday, 10 May 2010 17:37
they have all been updated, cheers
Richard
fuel prices
2 Sunday, 09 May 2010 10:53
Hi Mike
yes this works and is still live. I'll do my best to get up to data next week. The government reports the data comes from were still not published last time I looked (March), not sure why, perhaps the civil service is busy with other stuff!
thanks
Richard
test
1 Friday, 07 May 2010 10:05
is this working?

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Site Guidance

All calculations on this site are based on current fuel prices they are checked regularly are automatically updated and were last changed on:-
1th February 2012
For complete clarity, all calculation using current fuel prices are coloured red.
The costs calculated based on these fuel prices should be regarded as 'good estimates', given that fuel prices vary in different parts of the county and at different time of the year.
The calculations also have different levels of accuracy depending on the nature of the calculation. For example calculating the energy use of a known power output TV is very easy compared to calculating the effect on energy savings when insulating a cavity wall.

Site Symbols

Icons are also used throughout the site to indicate the level of saving or the relative cost implications associated with an choice you might make, or a tip you read or related to how your house is currently configured. These icons below.
pence lowest priority
£ 10+ Think twice, perhaps you should focus elsewhere first
£ 100+ Worth doing
£ 1000+ Focus your effort here to save as much money as possible

In some areas there are some substantial investments you may choose to make, in sections describing these we indicate with two icons, thumbs up or down, if the investment is a good one. Payback in less than 15 years is regarded as reasonable, but longer that that poor. These icons are below.
less than 15 years to payback investment
More than 15 years to payback the investment

Site Units

The main units used in this site are in the table below, For a complete explanation of any of these Wikipedia is an excellent resource.

Unit Name Detail
W Watt Unit of Power
kW Kilowatt 1000 watts
kWh Kilowatt hour Measure of Energy
L Litre Measure of Volume

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