Bill peak is not standing-charge peak
According to 24 stored Ofgem quarters, January – March 2023 is typical-bill #1 of 24 at £4,279 (standing rank #16), a different quarter from October – December 2024, which is standing-charge #1 of 24 at 92.65p/day (typical-bill rank #15 at £1,717). Combined standing charges now cost about £308 a year before any energy is used.
Daily standing charge since 2019
Electricity vs gas standing charge, pence per day, GB average. Now 54.83p elec / 29.68p gas.
Electricity standing charge rose from 23.00p/day in January – March 2019 to 54.83p/day in October – December 2026. Gas standing charge is now 29.68p/day. Source: Ofgem price cap decisions.
Combined standing charge, recent quarters
| # | Cap period | Combined standing charge |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | January – March 2025£338/yr fixed | 92.62p/day |
| 2 | January – March 2026£328/yr fixed | 89.84p/day |
| 3 | October – December 2025£320/yr fixed | 87.71p/day |
| 4 | April – June 2025£316/yr fixed | 86.47p/day |
| 5 | April – June 2026£315/yr fixed | 86.30p/day |
| 6 | July – September 2026£315/yr fixed | 86.23p/day |
| 7 | October – December 2026£308/yr fixed | 84.51p/day |
| 8 | July – September 2025£296/yr fixed | 81.19p/day |
Why standing charges rose
Standing charges recover fixed costs of supplying energy regardless of how much you use: maintaining the network, metering, and, after 2021, socialised recovery of failed-supplier costs through Ofgem's Supplier of Last Resort process. Because the charge is fixed, it falls hardest on low-usage households. This extract records the standing-charge series; it does not publish a SoLR-cost total, so this page does not quote one. Ofgem has consulted on standing-charge reform, including a lower-or-zero standing-charge tariff option.
The standing-charge series and the typical-bill series are different boards. Read the standing-charge debate and the national trends page for the two peaks side by side.
Sources
- Ofgem default tariff cap - October – December 2026 and prior quarterly decisions.
- See our methodology.
Open data: energy-bill-statistics.csv.
Every figure on PlainEnergyBills is rendered directly from Ofgem source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on Ofgem source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.