Domestic Fuel PricesMost 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.
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| Last Updated | 19th February 2013 | |||||
| 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 | 18.26 pence | £ 603 | 15.88 pence | £ 524 | 16.9 pence | £ 558 |
| Lowest | 13.94 pence | £ 460 | 12.73 pence | £ 420 | 13.82 pence | £ 456 |
| Average | 15.13 pence | £ 499 | 13.9 pence | £ 459 | 15.2 pence | £ 502 |
| An average annual energy consumption of 3,300 kWh is assumed for all calculations, and all figures include VAT | ||||||
| Last Updated | 19th February 2013 | |||||
| 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 | 4.9 pence | £ 882 | 4.75 pence | £ 855 | 4.78 pence | £ 860 |
| Lowest | 4.29 pence | £ 772 | 3.97 pence | £ 714 | 4.35 pence | £ 783 |
| Average | 4.65 pence | £ 836 | 4.28 pence | £ 770 | 4.59 pence | £ 827 |
| 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
- £ 0.145 per unit (1 kWh) for electricity, last updated 19th February 2013
- £ 0.045 per unit (1 kWh) for gas, last updated 19th February 2013
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 | £ 0.043 per unit | £ 0.047 per unit | 1 kWh per unit | £ 0.045 per kWh |
| Heating Oil (kerosene) | litre | £ 0.6 per litre3 | £ 0.65 per litre3 | 10 kWh per litre | £ 0.066 per kWh |
| Wood Log | ton | £ 135 per ton | £ 155 per ton | 4.2 kWh per kg | £ 0.035 per kWh |
| Wood Chip | ton | £ 100 per ton | £ 110 per ton | 3 kWh per kg | £ 0.035 per kWh |
| Wood Pellet | ton | £ 220 per ton | £ 233 per ton | 4.5 kWh per kg | £ 0.05 per kWh |
| Coal | ton | £ 287 per ton | £ 298 per ton | 9 kWh per kg | £ 0.033 per kWh |
| Smokeless Coal | ton | £ 351 per ton | £ 351 per ton | 6 kWh per kg | £ 0.059 per kWh |
| Bulk LPG | litre | £ 0.492 per litre | £ 0.543 per litre | 7.08 kWh per litre | £ 0.077 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.
I am currently paying 59.4 pence per litre (+VAT) so either your prices are out of date or I am paying way too much.
Great website, thanks!
We are in the process of moving to a house in which we want to install a multi-fuel stove to burn wood and coal. I am considering installing a back boiler to the otherwise oil-fired house (no gas in the area).
Is the outlay (approx £1k more to install the back boiler element, given that we will in any case fit the stove) worth the payback do you think? The boiler in question is a brand new one and 92% efficient so I am not sure whether this will be more efficient than the back boiler.
Thanks.
I've been mulling this one over. I have to say I cannot easily quantify an answer. It is a tricky question.
As an estimate you may use 4000kWh on heating water each year with heating oil this might cost £300. If you have your stove on for perhaps a third of the year and assuming that you only use the back boiler (unlikely) to provide all hot water at this time you will save £100 from the oil bill. The investment taking 10 years to payback.
It is never that simple however. That fact that you are heating the water consumes heat that would have otherwise been imparted to the house, meaning in effect that you will end up burning more wood to maintain the desired temperature or you will notch up the central heating, so you are unlikely to save £100 a year.
It is a nice idea, a back boiler, but I think the payback is very marginal.
There are often other reasons however. If your central heating fails at least you have another source of hot water, I suspect this is a better reason to do it, presuming that you do not have an electrical immersion heater.
Hope that helps
Cheers
richard
Thanks for a great informative web site
Gary
well spotted!.
On the last update (last week) we used prices for 2 tons of wood not one ton, but quoted on the site one ton. For consistency we moved to one ton prices but forgot that the wood log was a higher volume. The number £0.035 per kWh was correct, and was the number we expected hence why we missed the other error. It is all correct now and many thanks for finding the error, it is appreciated.
cheers
Richard
business electricity rates
We have the same energy supplier so how on earth is our prepayment meter double that of next door? I look forward to your reply and thank you for your great contribution to this society of lost victims. Kindest regards. Daniel
I would estimate that at least 75% of the gas usage in the flats is for heating. So it is likely that the rest of the consumption in the flats is similar and that heating and heat loss difference account for the differences you are seeing. In the summer you could test this by comparing consumption again.
A few questions:-
Is one of the flats an end flat?
Is the insulation better in one or are they both equally bad?
Do both the flats have modern boilers, and old inefficient boiler could be the issue.
What kind of heaters are you referring to , do you mean radiators or are they gas heaters?
Does Next door have the same kind of heater?
cheers
richard
My 93 year old mother died in May 2012, after having been in residential care (North Yorks County Council) for over 4 years, accumulating a loan of considerable size. We maintained the energy supply while we emptied the flat and had a tenant in for a few months, but after he left there has been very little energy used. We would be unwise to cut it off completely, with winter now arriving, but don't envisage using up to the standing charge.
We have been trying to sell the property ever since mum went into residential care, but so far unsuccessful.
It is bad enough that Council Tax now has to be paid at full rate of £92 per month, together with insurances, and maintenance work.
So we would be glad of any advice about this.
1) "Standing Charges" are rising in a manner that allows ALL the companies to charge a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly set rate regardless of useage. In reality, the less you use, the more it costs. ie: (not real numbers just examples) a £40 bill = £25 energy + £15 charges OR it means £11 energy + £29 charges. In short it is nigh on impossible to reduce your energy bills due to this rigging of costs. You are going cold for nothing.
2) The "kwh" usage numbers are always showing a larger use of fuel, yet our appliances are using less & less. This is because the companies are setting the calorific value higher & higher on your meter. ie: independant measuring devices actually show LESS actual use than that shown by the companies own meters. This is "illegal" but true. The meters are rigged to show the companies specific opinion of what kwh means, not to show how many amps/volts you have used. ie: 2 identical appliances on different suppliers will show a different kwh usage. Furthermore, ALL electricity meters have since the 50's been capable of being "reset" to show more use from the same amount of energy supplied. The older meters had a small screw on the underside of the spinning dial. This was used to slow down OR speed up the rate at which the counter wheel spun around. Same amount of electricty passed through the device, yet the counter showed a higher/lower kwh. This is a FACT. Modern digital devices have the same capacity. In point, " any meter can be re-set to use more than it actually is". Ask yourself WHY this is so ?
If you check all your old bills, you will find that your usage numbers have risen, when in reality you have used less (all new appliances are strictly tested for energy efficiency). I am lucky in that my own household appliances are the same as those from 20 years ago, baring a new fridge, freezer, and oven (all A in the energy charts). In reality, I use less power now than I ever did, yet my usage numbers rise year on year ??? This question has allowed me to understand why I cannot lower my energy bills. I cannot because the energy companies wont allow me to. They simply raise the standing charges (secretly via the computer key used to make payments) AND alter the value used in their own kwh rating charges, ie: control how fast my money is devoured by thie meter. It has nothing to do with how much actual energy I have consumed, only the calorific vale they place on it.
3) "kwh" what does this mean ? It is actually a nonsense word, there is no such thing as kilowatt hours. Electricity is measured in volts & amps. KWH is a word invented to allow charges based on "calorific value" ie: "what you might use your energy for". It does not mean how many kilowatts you use in 1 hour. Gas was measured in cubic volume in the old days, now it is measured in kwh.
Hope some this helps those of you struggling to comprehend "whats going on". No my friends, "you are not going mad", you are using less, and the bills are going ridiculously high, well above the %age rates claimed in increases. Your bills are doubling & trebling, but their is little you can do, because "de-regulation" brought out in the 80's makes all of this possible for companies to do. It is "your responsibilty to know your rights & enforce them" NOT the energy companies obligation to apply the law arbitrarily without descrimination.
Check your old bills, check your usage, check your kwh usage, you'll see I'm right :-)
PS: Good work my friend on having this site, there are so many folk now who are drowning under a deluge of useless information.
I live out in Dubai where energy bills are silly prices. Whilst there is no real Gas charge ( no need for heating) our Electric and water bills come in around 700 pounds a month. Today i decided to go and check the meters. The water meter shows 22698 units of use ( the last 3 figures i believe are decimals but they keep these as whole numbers for the purpose of the bill calculation and muliplied by roughly 1 pence per unit) More worrying however is the electricity. The meter shows a usage of 146 units, but when i compare that to my bill there is a conversion to 'consumption' with a multiplying factor of 40. My initial thoughts were this is to convert to KWH but on re-examing the meter i see that the units on the meter state KWH. Can anyone out there please shed some light on the multiplying factor (MF). Kind regards. Eli
I live on a residential home site and our site owner charges 3.02 ponds per unit for LPG. This seems rather high to me compared with .047 averagew for town gas.
Can you tell me the maximum figures in law that a site owner can charge or is just a free for all??
Regards
Scottish Power don't charge for a standing charge, but it isn't cost effective for them to send bills out regularly.
The law changed in 2003 and a landlord cannot make a profit reselling energy i.e lpg, gas, electricity. He has to provide within 30 days upon written application his costs.
cheers
Richard
do you know how much you are paying per kWh?
Is your loft well insulated, if not you may just be in time to get it done free by your electricity supplier. This will save a lot of money
cheers
Richard
Hi, I'm hoping you can clear something up for me. A self catering cottage is charging £0.60p - £1.00 (depending on which cottage) per unit of gas. Not having gas myself I don't know if this is right or wrong. They are also charging £0.23 for a unit of electricity, again not having electricty bills, I am not sure on this either. Could you help please?
the gas price seems very high if mains gas (4.1p/kWh average now), but I'm guessing it is probably calor gas.
if it is mains natural gas what do you mean by unit in this context do you mean 1 kWh, or a specified volume of gas, it is high for a kWh but not for 100 cubic feet for example.
If it is calor gas it is still high, cost price of the gas is at the most 30p/kWh, just take a look on calors website.
The electric is easy, the average UK rate is about 14p possibly a bit higher now. and they are charging 23p
basically the cottage is charging a margin on fuel, I think this is normal practice. The difference between the cottages could be to do with the sizes of the calor cylinders they would use in each. Are the small cottages more expensive?
cheers
Richard
That sounds impossible, the oil filled heater I guess is electric, and will consume a lot, but it was summer most of the time.
You can get a device that uses the relationship between the electrical current passing in the wire and the magnetic filed generated. The one I have is called electrisave. The wire you monitor is mains coming out of the electricity meter.
With this attached you experiment to try to see what is going on. Turning things on an off and to compare against the meter.
Cheers
Richard
There are so many possibilities. But £700 does sound high.
The first point to consider is that it is the coldest quarter of the year. It is most useful to get the annual cost; my guess is £1600 per year in your case.
This should buy about 35000kWh of “potential” gas energy, which is 10,000 to 15,000kWh more than average.
Your house has no cavities to fill with insulation; this will lose you a lot of heat. Solid walls are not good insulators, as you know. You can get insulation on the insides of your outer walls this is likely to save you money and should pay for itself in a few years, but it does mean redecorating!
Is the boiler old? Old boilers can be terrible at converting gas to heat (burning the gas). Can you get the model of the boiler and Google it to see if there is any data on it? Modern boilers are 90 to 95% efficient.
The question does 1unit per hour sound right when the heating is on.
how are you measuring the 1 unit? Your meter is probably either measuring the number of cubic meters used or the number of hundred cubic feet
A unit is a measure of energy that can be yielded from a material, and is defined as 1kWh, this would be for example 1kW of power delivered in an hour or perhaps 2kW of power delivered in 30 minutes.
Very Roughly :-
[volume of gas used] (m3) x 11.2 = number of units (kWh)
[volume of gas used] (hundred cubic feet) / 31 = number of units (kWh)
Cheers
Richard
We should add this some how as the price in high volume should be reflected. do you know the volume of your purchase
cheers
Richard
Great site. I'm obviously missing something important here. Why do you take a typical annual energy consumption of 3,300 kWh for electricity but a massive 18 000 kWh for gas? I suspect that the answer must be obvious but it isn't to me!
Bob
Thanks.
The reason is the proportionally large amount of energy we all use to heat our homes, and provide hot water each year. The majority of us use fuel that can be directly burned for heating, like gas or coal or heating oil. Regardless of the fuel used on average 18000kWh is used per average household each year. It is why it is so important to insulate your home.
If you used standard tariff electricity to heat your house you would still use about the same amount of energy as you would if you used gas but it would cost four times more, as electricity costs about four times more per kWh.
Generally electricity is for lighting, the tele and in my case too many computers! May family uses nearer 4000kWh each year because of the PC’s I think.
Does that answer the Question?
Cheers
Richard
Just want know if it is legal to install an electric cable to supply next door. I own both houses and the cable is fitted according to health and safety sandard.
Thanks for the help
My landlord of my commercial premises, coffee shop, invoices me for my gas usage.
This is because there are several business off the main meter with sub meters etc.
He is billing me 1.22 pence per unit for gas. Is this right?? Looking about it seems crazy high?
Can anyone help? Is there a different rate for commercial business.
Regards
Yes
That is exactly what it means
cheers
richard
I have just received details of a 4 bed bung in hereforshire, situated amongst other houses.
The figures give are Heating £2514/year over 3 years, total energy costs £3192 excluding TVs, washing machines etc- Category C. These are supposedly everages for this kind of house in this category
Regards
Peter
Thanks for helping, even though there is no easy solution. As previously stated, I can't be the only one.
There are several possibilities i think,
1. the average use number for a 3 bed house is wrong on the site. We have tested this number many times and it is generally about right It was however wrong during the cold year 10/11.
2. Bungalows require more to heat them. This can be true depending on the age of the property and how well it is insulated.
3. You like a very warm house????
4. Your boiler is less efficient than you think it is. Tricky to test this
5. You have a fuel leak (unlikely)
Humm, not much use,
Cheers
Richard
1. Current heating oil price around £600 per 1000 litres (I buy at the lowest possible rate)
2. Costs go up every year. We had a particularly frugal time around Feb when it was very cold and we got within a day or two of empty. Caused by delay in delivery, so we cut back drastically on central heating time.
3. Pretty good. Cavity wall plus loft. Coul do with more around the dormers, but on advice we haven't done any more because opinion of insulation company surveyor said it wasn't worth the payment (even with a grant).t a conservatory over the front door to reduce drafts and gain from hot air produced by sunshine (when it does!).
Boiler 80% efficient.Old but regularly serviced. Calculations showed it wasn't renewing in the short term.
We are careful with energy and like other people arew being screwed by the oil price.
have you a bit more info.
1. What rate are you paying for heating oil, looks like 7.1p per kWh.
2. what year are you specifically considering, the year 2010/2011 was ridiculously cold and my bill were 30% higher.
3. how well insulated are you?
with that we can see how sensible the numbers look.
cheers
Richard
We live in a 2 bedroom flat with a combi boiler, gas central heating and a gas oven. We have the central heating on for 2 hours in the morning and 5 hours in the evening at 20 degrees. We have the dishwasher on once a day. We run a small bath every day and spend about 20 minutes a day in the shower.
Our gas bill for 21 Dec - 15 March (about 85 days) is £350 and electricity for the same period is £160.
That equates to about £6 per day for 7 hours of heating, keeping clean and a bit of telly. Does that sound inflated or is that what it costs these days?
(i don't understand how to apply the kwh rates to my usage, sorry)
That's great to know - i am so glad I found your website.
I am with Southern Electric for both gas and electricity. The tariff is 'General Domestic NSC - moneysavers.'
The property is a large Edwardian house, from around 1900. It has been converted into 2 flats - ground floor and first floor. We are on the ground floor.
Insulation-wise, it probably scores about 6/10. The walls are very thick. In the back bedroom we filled the gaps between the floorboards because these were very draughty owing to an external ventilation grille at the back of the house, which let air in and through the gaps. Other rooms are carpeted, bar the living room which is at the opposite end of the house to the ventilation grille. The windows are single-glazed timber sash windows and we have put felted sellotape stuff around the edges to minimise the draughts.
The boiler is a Vaillant Combi Boiler and is about 10-15 years old. The British Gas heating engineer told me it is better than many newer ones and it had a total overhaul about 3 years ago when I was pregnant. However, it is located in an outhouse adjacent to the house which means that direct heat from the boiler does not come into the flat.
The new neighbours upstairs mentioned last month that they had tried to set up an electricity account with npower who told them that our address is registered as only one property, rather than two. Which is why I started to wonder about our high bills. I obviously need to ask them if they managed to resolve that.
Heating and hot water 16000kWh x 4.1p/kWh = £656
Electricity 4000kWh x 13.7p/kWh = £548
A Guesstimate for a 2 bed flat for a year:-
Heating and hot water 12000kWh x 4.1 = £492
Electricity 3000kWh x 13.7p/kWh = £411
Checking my bills over 80% of the gas bill is incurred between October and March half a year, so you might expect a bill of £492 x 0.8 = £394, so perhaps £200 for the period you talked about.
Electricity is more static, if not used for heating, your number is for about a quarter year so you may expect a bill of perhaps £100+
Both the gas and the electric seem high I agree, what bill tarrifs are you on?? How old is the property etc and the boiler.
cheers
Richard
at first glance it does not sound that mad, remembering that it is winter are the summer bills will be much lower. I will crunch the number tomorrow. can you tell me the age of the property and if the flat is well insulated?
cheers
Richard
Thanks
Tony
I understand what you are saying. The rates on the site include standing charges and are averaged across all supplies and all regions in he UK. These would include people like you with high standing charge ratio. I am therefore unsure how to deconvolute the standing charge from the averaged rate in the site, i do not think it is possible. We may need to do something specific with your numbers, What is your standing charge and unit rate as a starting point.
Also have you considered moving to a two tier rate where effectively the standing charge is included in the higher rate. The initial units will cost more but at least you are not paying when you don't use a thing!
cheers
Richard
deconvoluted
Unit charges kwh seem clear, just unsure how to factor in the daily standing charge of 21p per day into comparing our current electricity provider relative to others available.
cheers
Richard
Cheers
Richard
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.
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
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
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
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
Great information thank you. When will you next be updating? Also, the calculator doesn't seem to work.
Kind Regards,
Amanda.
cheers
Richard
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.
Thanks
Richard
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