Use the energy calculator below to see how your actual annual energy consumption compares to the average home in your area. It covers England and Wales and includes a gas and electricity cost calculator. Specific data from Scotland is not available at the moment but we hope to add it soon.
To use the energy calculator:
- Enter your property details .
- Look at the calculator results section. The energy calculator displays energy consumption and cost for a year, month and day.
- To include electricity costs & gas costs from your own bill (rather than the calculator’s default prices) adjust the sliders below the calculator results section to correspond with the tariff you pay (including VAT).
- Compare the results with the energy usage from your own electricity and gas bills or the annual energy statement provided by your energy supplier. Your latest bill should also contain an estimate usage for the last 12 months.
The default calculator settings use national information for all properties of all housing types and ages. It also assumes a gas connection and that the home is not using economy 7 electricity. 2019 energy costs are based on popular tariffs from major suppliers. Annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) are calculated using Draft SAP10 figures.
For some combinations of property details there may be no data available; in this case chose the closest property match to your home.
Enter Property Details
Enter your own property details and see the average energy use and energy cost for your type of property below.
Now adjust the sliders to use your own energy costs
Take these from your gas and electricity bills (inc VAT figures).
Read more below…
What do you do with your energy consumption comparison?
When comparing your own energy use against the annual averages above, do allow for variations by season if using energy figures for a day a week or even a month. In winter, with central heating used much more, daily gas use will be much higher than the average daily gas use calculated above. Likewise, electricity use will generally be higher when nights are longer or when more cooked meals are prepared.
If your energy consumption is above average then there are a number of things you can consider doing.
These include:
- Improving insulation in your home to reduce gas bills
- Choose energy efficient electrical appliances and LED light bulbs
- Reducing the price you pay for your energy by finding a better deal with a new supplier
- Invest in solar pv panels to generate your own electricity
Reducing your energy usage is a great place to start. With a combination of measures it is possible to reduce consumption by 20% or more. See Ten Steps To Saving £1,000 On Our Gas Bill as an example. For other ideas, take a look at some of our recent articles:
- Insulate suspended timber floors
- Save Money By Studying Your Energy Bill
- Compare Gas Prices
- Consider solar panels
Where Does The Data Come From?
The energy calculator uses National Energy Efficiency Database (NEED) data for 2017 (data published June 2019) to show the average electricity and gas usage for a specific type of property. Typical pricing is based on the assumptions below.
Pricing Assumptions
Actual prices will depend on your supplier and tariff. The energy cost calculator assumes the prices below and that 40% of Economy 7 electricity consumption is at the night rate. These rates can be adjusted using the sliders.
Electricity cost calculator: 18.1p per kWh and a standing charge of 22.0p per day
Economy 7 cost calculator: 8.5p per kWh off peak
Gas cost calculator: 4.0p per kWh and a standing charge of 26.5p per day
Updated: 18 April 2019
Last Updated: 1 July 2019 to include 2017 NEED data release
My house is 1 bedroom but 3 storeys. It has 105m2 and ceilings are 2.4m.
How can I work out whether my consumption is appropriate please?
Hi Elizabeth, thanks for the email. The NEED data probably doesn’t have enough homes with your specific location and age of property within the database. You don’t say whether your house is detached / semi-detached /terraced but if we take the national picture for all ages of property and a 1 bedroom house then
Detached 1-bed house
Total: 19,200 kWh
Electricity: 3,500 kWh
Gas: 15,700 kWh
Semi-detached 1-bed house
Total: 12,400 kWh
Electricity: 2,600 kWh
Gas: 9,800 kWh
Mid terraced 1-bed house
Total: 10,300 kWh
Electricity: 2,200 kWh
Gas: 8,100kWh
To put it in perspective, the electricity use is primarily dependent on the number of occupants and the energy efficiency of appliances and whether you cook with electricity.
Upgrading to the EnerPHit standard (high levels of fabric insulation and air-tightness) would mean the house would use 25kWh/m2 annually for space heating = 2,625kWh annually for a 105m2 house. Allowing 1,250kWh per person per year for hot water heating would then take the total gas demand to 3,875kWh for one person or 5,125 kWh for two (two is the average number of occupants in UK homes).
Hope this helps.
Kind regards, Jon
I would prefer to have the GAS in cu.mtrs ie X cu.mtrs as that is how my meter reads instead of doing the maths conversion of about 11 Kwh=1 cu.mtr
Hi Michael, Thanks for the feedback and suggestion.
It would not be possible to use volume of gas to compare usage as the calorific value of natural gas can vary depending on the source of the gas and its exact composition, making gas volume an unreliable measure of energy use. That’s one of the reasons why a unit of energy (kWh) is used for charging purposes on bills rather than volume.
Background
Different countries have different standards. In the UK calorific values of natural gas can legally vary by upto 14% on a daily basis. Example: if volume was used then your meter could show that you had used 5% more gas (volume) than last year even though in reality you had actually used 5% less energy than last year (and assuming a constant gas price would have been charged 5% less as well).
UK gas suppliers have to maintain the energy content in the gas transmission network within the band 37.5 MJ/m3 to 43.0 MJ/m3. This means that the energy content can vary between 10.4 kWh and 11.9 kWh per m3. Suppliers calculate the energy content daily and then average it for the length of your billing period They then use a conversion factor to show the cost in kWh when they bill customers to ensure that users are charged for actually energy content rather than volume. That’s one of the reasons why there are 13 different gas supply areas in the UK as it would be very hard to provide a single calorific value throughout the network given that the gas could come from multiples sources like the European continent, the North sea or LNG delivered by ship to Milford Haven and would depend on which part of the network the gas was inserted into.
Generally I understand that the variations are more to do with location than time (i.e. the calorific value in any one place is relatively stable but two places far apart on the gas network could be very different) unless the local inputs to the gas network change significantly. When Milford Haven LNG terminal came on line I would have expected the Welsh calorific values to shift.
Hope this explains why kWh’s are used.
Kind regards
Jon
The gas on my meter is in cu.mtr I know a cu.mtr is about 11 Kwh but why not say X cu.mtr per day/year so no need to do conversions