£263.13per quarter

£208.25850 kWh of electricity

£54.88Standing charge, 91 days

That works out at £2.88 a day, £87.71 a month, or £1,052.51 a year at this rate of use. The standing charge is 21% of it, and that part does not fall however little you use.

Use these figures to check whether you could pay less

What this assumes, and what it leaves out

The bill covers 91 days.
Your unit rate and standing charge stayed the same for the whole period.

Not included:

VAT. Domestic energy is charged at 5%, and suppliers show prices including it — so if your rates came from a bill, VAT is already in them.
Any credit or debit already on your account, and any fixed discount or warm home payment.
Rate changes part-way through the period, which happen whenever a price cap moves or a fixed deal ends.

Your bill is about what your usage and rates imply

Nothing stands out. That does not mean the bill is small, only that it is consistent with the usage and rates you entered — so reducing it means using less or paying less per unit, rather than finding a fault.

Confidence Moderate — consistent with what you have entered, but not proven.

What this rests on

The cost works out close to what your usage and rates imply, with no single part standing out. (moderate)

What to do

Everything worth doing here is free.

Use eco programmes, and wash cooler
Nothing stands out, so these are the general-purpose ones.
Almost all of a washing machine’s energy goes on heating water, so dropping from 60°C to 30°C cuts the cost of a cycle by around two thirds. Dishwasher eco programmes run longer at a lower temperature and use less energy despite the longer time.
- Reduces how much energy you use
- Do it now
- Free
- Evidence: moderate
How to tell if it worked: Read your meter before the change and again a week later, at the same time of day, and compare the two weeks.
Switch off what is on standby but never used
Nothing stands out, so these are the general-purpose ones.
Worth doing, and worth being realistic about. A modern television on standby costs pence a year; a games console left in rest mode, an old set-top box, or a desktop computer sleeping rather than shut down can each cost £15 to £30. Target those rather than trying to unplug everything.
- Reduces how much energy you use
- Do it now
- Free
- Evidence: moderate
How to tell if it worked: Read your meter before the change and again a week later, at the same time of day, and compare the two weeks.
Find your overnight base load
Nothing stands out, so these are the general-purpose ones.
Take a meter reading last thing at night and again first thing, with nothing running that you would not expect. Divide the difference by the hours between them to get the constant draw of your home. Under about 0.1 kWh an hour is unremarkable; much above it means something substantial is running around the clock, and finding what is usually worth more than any other single change.
- Does not save anything by itself — tells you where to look
- A few minutes
- Free
- Evidence: strong
How to tell if it worked: Repeat the measurement after making a change and compare the two.

What this assumes

The bill covers 91 days.
Your unit rate and standing charge stayed the same for the whole period.

Worked out by energy rules 1.1.0. Nothing you entered leaves your browser.

How an electricity bill is worked out

Two parts, added together. The first is what you used: the number of kilowatt hours multiplied by your unit rate. The second is the standing charge, a fixed daily amount for being connected, multiplied by the number of days the bill covers.

That second part is the one people miss. It is charged whether or not you use anything, so it does not fall when you use less — and on a low-usage household it can be a third or more of the total. The standing charge calculator works that share out on its own.

Where to find the figures

All three are on your bill, usually on the page headed something like “how we worked out your charges”. The unit rate is in pence per kWh, the standing charge in pence per day, and the usage in kWh for the period. If your bill shows a rate change part-way through, it will list two sets — use the one covering most of the period, and expect the answer to be slightly out.

Why your answer may differ from the bill

A gap of a few percent is normal. Rates change mid-period, meter readings are taken on a different day from the one you assumed, and VAT rounding moves things by pennies.

A gap of more than about 5% usually has one of three causes: the reading was estimated rather than actual, the bill covers a different number of days than you entered, or the rate you used is not the one being charged. Enter what your bill says in the optional field and this page will tell you which side the difference falls on.

An estimated reading is by far the most common, and it is fixed for free — send an actual reading and the supplier rebills the period against it.

What this does not include

VAT is not added separately. Domestic energy is charged at 5%, and suppliers quote rates including it, so if your figures came off a bill it is already there. Credits, debits, fixed discounts and warm home payments are also excluded — this works out the cost of the energy, not the balance of the account.