We compare business gas and electricity from 20 plus suppliers for supported living and learning disability services. Typical bills run £10.7k to £63.6k 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 supported living 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.
Supported living looks nothing like a care home on paper and a lot like one on the meter. Instead of one big building you have a cluster of ordinary houses and flats, each with its own domestic-sized boiler, its own pair of meters and its own standing charges. Tenants are home during the day, heating runs long, hot water and laundry are heavy, and where the provider holds the supply rather than the tenant, the bills land on a service that is funded per hour of support. The killer detail is standing charges: at roughly £365 a year per property across both fuels, ten properties carry about £3,650 of standing charge before a single kWh is used, which is precisely why portfolio pricing beats renewing house by house.
Standing charges multiplied by property count. At roughly £365 a year per property across both meters, a ten-property service carries about £3,650 of fixed charge before anyone boils a kettle.
Renewal dates scattered across the portfolio, so there is almost always at least one house sitting on deemed or out-of-contract rates at any given moment.
Older, poorly insulated housing stock heated all day because tenants are home all day, which is the opposite of the domestic profile the boiler was sized for.
Energy priced as a cost of the service while funding is set per support hour, so there is no mechanism to pass an increase on.
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 |
Build one meter list with MPAN, MPRN, address and contract end date for every property. That single spreadsheet is what turns a dozen small quotes into one portfolio tender.
Aim to align every end date onto the same day. Once the portfolio renews together you stop losing houses onto deemed rates whenever a tenancy or a lease changes hands.
Watch new properties carefully. A house you take on mid-year lands on deemed rates from day one, and deemed rates are the most expensive on the market.
Ask about half-hourly or AMR upgrades on the larger properties. Where a house has genuinely high consumption, meter data is what unlocks a better-shaped rate.
Check whether each property should be on a business or a domestic supply. Getting the classification right matters for both price and VAT treatment, and it is worth confirming rather than assuming.
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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Get a tariff matched to how a supported living actually uses energy: the equipment, the hours and the fuels on your meters.
