Business Electricity

Although business electric [price per unit] charges are typically cheaper than domestic rates, heavy usage, environmental taxation and standing charges can make a company’s electric bill a significant and costly overhead.

Due to constant price fluctuations, to ensure your firm isn’t paying more than it needs to, you should periodically compare business energy prices and supplier deals, as doing so can significantly reduce your business electricity costs by hundreds of pounds.

How to cut business electricity costs

There are several ways you can slash your company’s electricicity fees:

1. Turn the heating down

Although there is no minimum temperature law, guidance suggests workplace heating is no less than 16℃ for sedentary workers or 13℃ for active employees. Just having your heating at two degrees lower could save your business approximately £140 on a £1k electric bill.

2. Switch off unnecessary lighting or use sensors

Electricity for lighting can be accountable for up to 40% of a commercial premises’ electricity bill.

3. Switch off unused equipment or set up a prompt sleep mode

Make sure office equipment is switched off when not in use or goes into sleep mode quickly after use.

4. Don’t overfill the kettle

Encourage staff to be energy efficient by not overfilling the kettle - not only will this save your business money on its electricity bill, but your staff will waste less time getting a drink too!

5. Use a smart meter

Keeping an eye on your usage with a smart meter can help you understand where you might be able to save significant costs.

6. Energy schemes

There are several types of green energy schemes that can help small businesses and environmental tax relief schemes for larger organisations too. An example of a small business green energy scheme is the ‘Smart Export Guarantee’ whereby your business can get paid for generating and exporting electricity to the grid.

7. Compare business electricity

A few weeks before your electricity contract is due to end, always shop around and compare business electricity prices and deals.

Who is the cheapest business electricity supplier?

Some of the best business electricity rates can be found with the following commercial suppliers:

• E.ON
• EDF
• Npower

However, cheap business electricity suppliers’ rates are constantly changing and other contract terms can affect costs too such as a ‘standing charge’ meaning the cheapest rate doesn’t guarantee the cheapest deal.

To genuinely make sure you’re getting the best deal for your business, you should instruct an expert broker to compare deals and contract terms on your behalf instead of relying on auto-generated business utilities comparison site results.

What costs should you look out for on your commercial electricity bill?

• Unit cost - what you pay per kWh of energy used.
• Standing charge - a fixed daily rate for supplying energy to your premises and National Grid maintenance.
• Contract end date - whilst not exactly ‘costs’, this date is when you are free to switch suppliers and make huge savings on your company’s electricity costs.
• Environmental tax - if applicable, Climate Change Levy (CCL) main rates are included on your bill.
• Value added tax - charged at 20%.
• Hidden information - your supplier is legally obliged to inform you of any better tariff deals they currently offer although what your current supplier offers isn’t necessarily better or cheaper than an alternative supplier. The only way you are guaranteed to find the best electricity deal is by conducting a thorough business electricity comparison of tariff deals offered by a wide range of energy suppliers, or by letting Complete Business do this for you.

How much is an average business electric bill?

According to government statistics, the following are the average electricity price rates for various sized businesses in the UK (the Climate Change Levy has not been applied to these average prices):

Business Size	Electricity unit price per kWh
Microbusinesses / very small	16.17p
Small	14.08p
Medium	11.60p
Large	11.38p
Very Large	11.62p
Average for all sized businesses	12.59p

So how does the average bill for business electricity compare to gas? Not very well. The average cost per unit of gas in 2020 was only 2.48p per kWh.

However, if you’re a large business with heavy gas consumption, the CCL has recently increased to 67% for natural gas and this trend looks set to continue, making gas much more expensive than it has been historically.

To reduce your firm’s electricity costs, you can easily get a tailored quote for your business from one of our commercial utility experts by simply supplying us with some basic information.

Our utility expert will then extensively compare deals from various reputable suppliers to find the cheapest deal that’s the best fit for your particular business.

If you’d like to know more about what can affect your business energy quote, take a look at our Business Utilities page.