Every restaurant owner knows their food costs to the penny. You know what a portion of chips costs, what your supplier charges per kilo of chicken, and exactly what a bottle of house wine sets you back. Ask what the dishwasher costs to run for a year and you usually get a blank look.
That is understandable, because energy arrives as one bundled bill with nothing on it to say which machine did what. But it matters: a typical UK restaurant spends £15,000 to £30,000 a year on energy, using 70,000 to 100,000 kWh of electricity alone. That makes energy one of your top three operating costs, and unlike food and labour it is the one most owners do the least about.
Equipment by equipment: what a kitchen costs to run
The figures below are based on typical UK commercial kitchen equipment, current electricity rates and standard restaurant trading hours. Your own numbers will vary with your equipment, your menu and your hours.
Commercial ranges and ovens
Your ranges are the workhorses. A busy restaurant running three of them through service uses roughly 18,000 to 40,000 kWh a year, costing £5,400 to £12,000.
Saving tip. Use induction where the menu allows. Induction puts around 90% of the energy into the pan against roughly 40% for a traditional gas burner, it comes up to temperature faster and it keeps the kitchen cooler, which means the extraction and the air conditioning work less hard as well.
Commercial dishwashers
A dishwasher cycling continuously through service uses 5,000 to 10,000 kWh a year, costing £1,500 to £3,000, and that is before the hot water feeding it.
Saving tip. Run full racks, keep the wash arms and filters clear, and if your tariff has a cheaper overnight period, move heavy cleaning cycles into it.
Walk-in cold rooms and refrigeration
The cold room never switches off. Running around the clock all year, a walk-in typically uses 8,760 to 17,520 kWh a year, costing £2,600 to £5,300.
Saving tip. Check the door seals quarterly, because a failed seal makes the compressor run far longer than it needs to. Keep the condenser coils clean too, as a dirty coil can cost you a quarter of the unit's efficiency.
Heating, ventilation and air conditioning
This is the one that surprises people. Between ventilating the kitchen, keeping the dining room comfortable in summer and heating the building in winter, climate control can account for 8,000 to 20,000 kWh a year, or £2,400 to £6,000.
Saving tip. Change the filters quarterly, since a clogged filter makes the unit work noticeably harder for the same result. Controls that follow occupancy rather than the clock make a real difference in a room that is empty half the day.
Extraction and ventilation
Kitchen extraction is a legal requirement while you are cooking. Depending on the size and power of the system it uses 5,000 to 15,000 kWh a year, costing £1,500 to £4,500.
Saving tip. Variable speed drives let the fans follow demand instead of running flat out from open to close, which on its own can cut extraction energy by 30 to 50%.
Lighting
A restaurant needs more from its lighting than most businesses, from bright task lighting on the pass to dimmable lighting front of house. Total lighting typically comes to 4,000 to 10,000 kWh a year, or £1,200 to £3,000.
Saving tip. An LED retrofit is one of the fastest payback investments available to you, using up to 80% less energy than halogen and lasting far longer. Put sensors in the stores, corridors and toilets while you are at it.
What it all adds up to
| Equipment | Annual kWh | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial range or oven (three) | 18,000 to 40,000 | £5,400 to £12,000 |
| Commercial dishwasher | 5,000 to 10,000 | £1,500 to £3,000 |
| Walk-in cold room | 8,760 to 17,520 | £2,600 to £5,300 |
| Heating and air conditioning | 8,000 to 20,000 | £2,400 to £6,000 |
| Extraction | 5,000 to 15,000 | £1,500 to £4,500 |
| Lighting | 4,000 to 10,000 | £1,200 to £3,000 |
| Total range | 48,760 to 112,520 | £15,100 to £33,800 |
Those numbers make one thing obvious: your unit rate matters enormously. A difference of two or three pence per kWh across 80,000 kWh a year is £1,600 to £2,400, which is the gap between a good month and a bad one.
Want your own figure rather than a range? The energy cost calculator estimates it from your business type and current spend, and the bill checker compares your current rate against the market.
Three things that actually move the needle
1. Get on the right tariff
This is the biggest lever you have, and the only one that works without touching a single piece of equipment. Save on average 40% on your business energy bills.. More if you are on out-of-contract or deemed rates. On a high consumption kitchen that is a serious number. Savings are estimates: typical spend from published UK benchmarks, multiplied by a 30% to 50% band around the 40% our customers save on average (the business's own figure, not a published dataset). Your saving depends on your current contract, usage and live supplier prices. See how we estimate.
Restaurants sit inside hospitality, one of the ten sectors we cover, with dedicated pages for independent restaurants, dark kitchens, pubs and bars and inns with rooms.
2. Target your biggest consumers first
Do not try to optimise everything at once. Go after the equipment that uses the most, which for most kitchens is cooking, then refrigeration, then climate control. A 10% gain on your ranges is worth more than a 50% gain on your lighting.
3. Match the tariff to how you trade
If you prep heavily in the morning and serve in the evening, a structure with a cheaper overnight or off peak period can be worth pricing. If your load is flat across the day, a straightforward fixed rate is usually better. The point is that the tariff should fit the business rather than the other way round.
Do not let energy be the cost you ignore
You scrutinise every other line on the profit and loss. Food costs are managed to the decimal point and labour is rostered to the half hour. Energy deserves the same attention, and it is the one line you can move without changing anything a customer sees.
If you have not reviewed your contract in the last twelve months, start there. There is more on reading the bill itself in our guide to your energy bill, and practical fixes in the energy saving tips guide.
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