We compare business gas and electricity from 20 plus suppliers for residential care homes. Typical bills run £23.3k to £90.7k a year and businesses that switch with us save 40 per cent on average, typically 30 to 50 per cent. The figures on this page are estimates from published UK benchmarks, not quotes.
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What a typical residential care home uses and pays across the UK, from published benchmarks.
Figures are estimates from published UK benchmarks priced at 25p/kWh electricity, 7p/kWh gas and about £365 a year in standing charges. They are not quotes. See how we estimate.
Personal care without nursing, usually 15 to 60 registered beds, most often a single independent site or a small family group. Heating and hot water do the heavy lifting: high setpoints for sedentary residents, stored cylinders above 60 degrees, an on-site laundry most days and a catering kitchen serving three meals plus snacks. Electricity is a flat, stubborn 24/7 baseload rather than a set of peaks, which is exactly the profile that gets priced badly on a rollover. There are around 10,300 care homes without nursing registered with CQC in England, the large majority independently owned and holding their own supply contracts.
Heating that cannot be turned down. Residents are sedentary and often cannot tell you they are cold, so setpoints stay at 22 to 24 degrees and the boilers run through the night as well as the day.
A laundry that never catches up. Continence care, bedding and personal clothing mean several washer-extractor and tumble dryer cycles a day, at 5.5 to 10 kWh per drying cycle.
Hot water held at temperature whether anyone bathes or not, because legionella control does not bend around a tariff.
Fee income largely set by the local authority, so every pound of overpriced energy comes straight out of staffing and maintenance rather than out of a price rise.
Typical equipment loads across care homes and supported living, with annual kWh and cost bands from published benchmarks.
| Equipment | kWh a year | Cost a year (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| Gas boilers, radiators and space heating (24/7 at 22-24C) | 250,000–500,000 kWh | £17,500–£35,000 |
| Hot water: stored cylinders, assisted baths, wet rooms, secondary circulation | 90,000–180,000 kWh | £6,300–£12,600 |
| On-site laundry: washer-extractors and vented tumble dryers | 18,000–45,000 kWh | £4,500–£11,250 |
| Catering kitchen: combi ovens, dishwasher, walk-in fridge and freezer | 20,000–45,000 kWh | £5,000–£11,250 |
| 24/7 lighting, nurse call, door access, CCTV and fire systems | 15,000–38,000 kWh | £3,750–£9,500 |
| Passenger lifts, ceiling hoists, profiling beds and pressure mattress pumps | 6,000–18,000 kWh | £1,500–£4,500 |
Diarise your contract end date and price 6 to 12 months out. Out-of-contract rates typically run 30 to 80 percent above a negotiated fixed price on published broker estimates, and care homes are among the easiest businesses for a supplier to roll over quietly.
Lag the secondary hot water circulation loop and put the circulation pump on a sensible schedule. It is one of the few gas savings in a care home that does not touch resident comfort.
Swap corridor, stairwell and en-suite fittings to LED with presence sensing on low-traffic routes. These run 24 hours a day, so payback is far shorter than in a shop or office.
Ask for half-hourly data if you have AMR. It shows how flat your overnight baseload really is, which is the argument for a better-shaped contract rather than a standard small-business quote.
If you own more than one home, tender them as one portfolio and align the end dates so the group renews together instead of drifting one meter at a time.
Illustrative example
Around 30 registered beds with in-house laundry
Heating, hot water, laundry and catering cannot be switched off, so the whole bill rides on the contract rate.
Illustrative example, not a real customer. Figures are estimates based on published UK benchmarks. See how we estimate. See all worked examples.
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