경과

As Simon Evans reported for Carbon Brief on 21 October 2026, figures from the think tank Nesta break down how typical household energy bills have changed since 2020, after inflation, using the parts of Ofgem's price cap. The main findings, as Carbon Brief reports them:

  • A typical household electricity bill was £180 a year higher in the fourth quarter of 2026 than in the same period of 2020, in real terms. Wholesale costs, driven by the price of gas, account for £161 of that, nearly 90%.
  • Wholesale gas costs are also behind 77% (£283) of a £368 real-terms rise in household gas bills.
  • Network costs added £72 to typical electricity bills, most of it (£46) for the transmission network. Renewable contracts for difference are reducing electricity bills by £17 under the current cap.
  • Government policy costs fell from £183 (16%) of a typical dual-fuel bill in October 2020 to £114 (7%) under the October 2026 cap.

The headline total checks out against the regulator. Ofgem's own announcement of 26 August 2026 put the cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026 at £1,723 a year for a typical household using both fuels, and said the increase reflected higher wholesale gas prices linked to the conflict in the Middle East. Note that the analysis is about households. Business energy is not covered by the cap, and how wholesale prices reach a business depends on its contract.

중소기업에 미치는 의미

The mechanism applies to everyone who buys electricity: gas power stations set the wholesale price much of the time, so expensive gas pushes up the price of power even on days when most of it comes from wind, solar and nuclear. Yesterday's Commons committee report, covered in MPs urge moving energy levies from electricity to gas, made the same point about gas setting the price. For context on what businesses actually pay, DESNZ's survey of suppliers put the average business price at 24.51p per kWh for electricity and 5.28p for gas in Q2 2026, including the Climate Change Levy. Your own rates may differ a lot from that.

Here is the useful part: price and carbon are different measures. The wholesale part of your electricity price follows the most expensive power station needed to meet demand, which is often gas. Your carbon report uses the government grid factor, which reflects the average mix of generation across a year. Gas made up 35% of GB generation in 2020 and 27% in 2025, and the UK electricity factor fell from 0.23314 kg CO2e per kWh for 2020 to 0.13096 for 2026. So bills went up while each kWh got cleaner. Our post on the UK grid carbon intensity trend goes into the long run, and the grid growth plan covers the network investment behind part of the bill.

What doesn't change is that using less of either fuel cuts both cost and emissions. Gas burned on site is Scope 1 at 0.18231 kg CO2e per kWh, and electricity is Scope 2.

사례

Take an illustrative business using 30,000 kWh of electricity and 40,000 kWh of gas a year. On the 2026 government factors that is 3.93 tonnes CO2e from electricity and 7.29 tonnes from gas. Cutting each by 10%, through heating controls, LED lighting or switching kit off out of hours, saves about 1.12 tonnes CO2e a year. At the DESNZ average business prices above, that is roughly £946 a year; use your own unit rates for a real figure. We are not predicting prices: whatever they do, a kWh you don't use costs nothing and emits nothing.

지금 해야 할 일

  1. Track kWh every month, not pounds. Pounds move with prices; kWh shows what you actually used. Monthly figures show a heating schedule left on or a summer baseload that never drops.
  2. Check you are not paying levy you don't owe. Some businesses and charities don't have to pay the Climate Change Levy but are charged it anyway. Our free Climate Change Levy check takes five questions, and the guide on how to claim back Climate Change Levy covers refunds.
  3. Read your contract. Know when your fixed rate ends and whether your price follows the wholesale market, so a change in your bill doesn't get mistaken for a change in your use.
  4. Report carbon from kWh and the official factor, never from spend: a bill that rose because gas got dearer does not mean your emissions rose.

Carbon Recycling이 돕는 방법

Carbon Recycling turns the electricity and gas kWh from your bills into CO2e with the right year's DESNZ factor, puts gas in Scope 1 and electricity in Scope 2, and shows emissions by month on your dashboard, so a drop in use shows up straight away. You can enter bills one by one or import a spreadsheet. The Climate Change Levy check runs on every UK site from the bills you've entered and is included in every plan. Before you sign up, the free business electricity and gas prices tool shows what businesses of each size pay, the GB generation mix tool shows how much power comes from gas, and the kWh to CO2e calculator does the carbon sum.