What is an energy standing charge?
A fixed amount charged for every day you are connected, whether or not you use any energy. It is the part of the bill that using less does not reduce.
What it covers
Maintaining the wires and pipes, reading and maintaining your meter, and the cost of taking on customers of suppliers that have failed. It is quoted in pence per day, set per tariff and per region, and it is regulated as part of the price cap.
If you have both gas and electricity you pay two of them. That is why a gas-heated home still receives a gas bill in July, when almost no gas has been used.
Why it matters more than it looks
At around 60p a day, an electricity standing charge is roughly £220 a year before a single unit is used. For a household using a lot of energy that is a modest share of the bill. For a household using very little, it can be a third of it or more.
This is the honest answer to “why does my bill never go down when I try?”. The usage part responds to effort. The fixed part does not — so the harder you work at using less, the larger a proportion of your remaining bill becomes untouchable.
Can you avoid it?
No. Not by using less, not by asking, and not by having a smart meter. Every domestic tariff carries one, and it is charged for days when the property is empty.
Disconnecting a meter entirely is possible but expensive, effectively permanent for practical purposes, and affects the saleability of a property. It is not an energy-saving measure.
When a lower standing charge is worse
Tariffs trade the two components off. A lower daily charge almost always comes with a higher unit rate, so which is cheaper depends entirely on how much you use.
Say one tariff has a 40p standing charge and a 26p unit rate, and another has 60p and 24p. The first saves £73 a year on the fixed charge but costs 2p more per unit. They break even at about 3,650 kWh a year. Below that the low-standing-charge tariff wins; above it, it loses.
Zero-standing-charge tariffs are the extreme version of the same trade. They are not free money — the fixed cost is recovered in the unit rate instead — and they suit a genuinely low-usage property such as a flat that is empty much of the year.
What to do about it
Work out what share of your bill it is. If it is small, ignore it and concentrate on usage. If it is large, that is useful information: it means your usage is already low and further effort there will not achieve much, and a tariff with different balance may be worth looking at.
The standing charge calculator works out the annual cost, the share of your bill and the break-even usage against a second tariff. To compare two tariffs completely, use the tariff comparison.