The default energy tariff price cap for direct debit customers in the United Kingdom is forecast to surpass ***** British pounds in April 2023. This projection continues an increasing trend in the energy tariff price cap, which has risen considerably since 2021 amid a surge in wholesale energy prices. The default tariff price cap is set by Ofgem, the United Kingdom's energy regulator.

Households in Great Britain will have their energy bills capped at ***** British pounds per year from October 2022 onwards, due to the measures introduced by the UK government in September of 2022. This will result in savings of around ***** for the average household, compared with the previous price cap, which was set to increase to ***** per year.

The average gas price in Great Britain in July 2025 was 79.28 British pence per therm. This was five pence lower than the same month the year prior and follows a trend of increasing gas prices. Energy prices in the UK Energy prices in the UK have been exceptionally volatile throughout the 2020s. Multiple factors, such as a lack of gas storage availability and the large share of gas in heating, have exacerbated the supply issue in the UK that followed the Russia-Ukraine war. This has also led to many smaller suppliers announcing bankruptcy, while an upped price cap threatened the energy security of numerous households. The United Kingdom has some of the highest household electricity prices worldwide. How is gas used in the UK? According to a 2023 survey conducted by the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 58 percent of respondents used gas as a heating method during the winter months. On average, household expenditure on energy from gas in the UK stood at some 24.9 billion British pounds in 2023, double the amount spent just two years prior.

Figures and underlying data for the report 'Smart Energy Research Lab: Energy tariffs, energy expenditure, and price elasticity of energy use in GB domestic buildings during the 2022/2023 heating season' which analysed:· how GB household energy tariffs changed in the heating season (defined here as October through to March inclusive) of 2022/2023 compared to the previous year,the effect of these price increases on energy usage in terms of price elasticities,how gas and electricity expenditures were affected,the effectiveness of measures adopted by households to changes their energy use in heating season 2022/2023 to reduce energy expenditure, andthe impact the Government’s Energy Price Guarantee (which set a maximum limit on energy unit costs) had on reducing energy expenditure.

Electricity costs in the US utility market will be affected with the changes to the pricing of emission allowances. This structure will have implications for the electricity rate design and load management programs. Under the cap-and-trade program to control carbon dioxide emissions, all of the carbon emitting processes covered by the law, such as electric utilities and generators, would have to obtain permits (allowances) for the carbon emitted in the process of producing goods and services. This structure of total revenue requirements from utilities depends on the way allowances are allocated or auctioned, the effect on auction revenue, the total allowances available each year and on the actions taken to reduce emissions. These factors might impact the way that utilities’ marginal costs for energy change and the potential effects on policies whose goal is to influence consumer behavior. The cost difference between peak and the off-peak hours can change not only with time, but also with changes in the assumed price of carbon dioxide (CO2) allowances. Also, under certain conditions, these changes can reduce the economic value of technologies designed to shift the consumption of electricity over a period of time. Read More

The price of gas in the United Kingdom was 80.1 British pence per therm in the third quarter of 2025. It is anticipated gas prices will increase to 85.4 pence in the first quarter of 2026 before gradually falling to just under 77.6 pence by the second quarter of of the year. Surging energy costs and the cost of living crisis At the height of the UK's cost of living crisis in 2022, approximately 91 percent of UK households were experiencing rising prices compared with the previous month. It was during 2022 that the UK's CPI inflation rate reached a peak of 11.1 percent, in October of that year. Food and energy, in particular, were the main drivers of inflation during this period, with energy inflation reaching 26.6 percent, and food prices increasing by 18.2 percent at the height of the crisis. Although prices fell to more expected levels by 2024, an uptick in inflation is forecast for 2025, with prices rising by 3.7 percent in the third quarter of the year. Global Inflation Crisis The UK was not alone in suffering rapid inflation during this time period, with several countries across the world experiencing an inflation crisis. The roots of the crisis began as the global economy gradually emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Blocked-up supply chains, struggled to recover as quickly as consumer demand, with food and energy prices also facing upward pressure. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to Europe gradually weening itself of cheap Russian energy exports, while for several months Ukraine struggled to export crucial food supplies to the rest of the World.

The average annual domestic electricity bill in the United Kingdom saw an overall increase from 2014 to 2024 and boomed in 2023. In this period, households with an annual consumption of ***** kilowatt-hours saw bills rise from *** to ***** British pounds, including value-added tax. The household expenditure on electricity in the UK amounted to approximately **** billion current British pounds in 2023. Direct debit payments consistently cheaper In the period under consideration, the annual bill for an electricity consumption of ***** kilowatt-hours was consistently more expensive for consumers using standard credit as a method of payment, averaging ***** real British pounds in 2024. From 2016 onwards, consumers using the prepayment method paid less than standard credit consumers and, in 2022, their bill was the least expensive, at *** real British pounds. Electricity prices on the rise Household electricity prices in the UK have doubled in the past decade for both consumer groups. Despite the UK government setting a tariff cap to protect consumers, the UK’s power market was greatly impacted by the global energy crisis. In August 2022, electricity prices in Great Britain peaked at *** British pounds per megawatt-hour, over four times the price compared to August the following year.

Introduction When a generation customer requests a firm connection under a congested part of our network, there may be a requirement to reinforce the network to accommodate the connection. The reinforcement works take time to complete which increases the lead time to connect for the customer. Furthermore, the customer may need to contribute to the cost of the reinforcement works. UK Power Networks offers curtailable-connections as an alternative solution for our customers. It allows customers to connect to the distribution network as soon as possible rather than waiting, and potentially paying, for network reinforcement. This is possible because under a curtailable connection, the customer agrees that their access to the network can be controlled when congestion is high. These fast-tracked curtailable-connections can transition to firm connections once the reinforcement activity has taken place. Curtailable connections have enabled faster and cheaper connection of renewable energy generation to the distribution network owned and operated by UK Power Networks. The Distribution System Operator (DSO) team has developed the Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) that monitors curtailable-connection generators as well as associated constraints on the network. When a constraint reaches a critical threshold, an export access reduction signal may be sent to generators associated with that constraint so that the network can be kept safe, secure, and reliable. This dataset contains a record of curtailment events and the associated access reduction experienced by DERs with curtailable connections. Access reduction is calculated as the MW access reduction from maximum × duration of access reduction in hours (MW×h). The dataset categorises curtailment actions into two categories:

  Constraint-driven curtailment: when a constraint is breached, we aggregate the access reduction of all customers associated with that constraint. A constraint breach occurs when the network load exceeds the safe limit; and
  Non-constraint driven curtailment: this covers all curtailment which is not directly related to a constraint breach on the network. It includes customer comms failures, non-compliance trips (where the customer has not complied with a curtailment instruction), planned outages, and unplanned outages.

Each row in the dataset is a curtailment event, meaning a continuous period of access reduction, with associated start and end times, volume of access reduction, estimated energy reduction, and likely curtailment driver. We also provide the associated grid supply point (GSP) and nominal voltage to provide greater aggregation capabilities.
Estimated energy loss is calculated using the average generation of the specific asset from the five most recent non-curtailment weekdays or the two most recent non-curtailment weekend days, depending on whether the curtailment event occurred on a weekday or a weekend.
The curtailment driver column represents UK Power Networks' best view of the likely driver of the curtailment. Future improvements may remap drivers and provide a more detailed breakdown of drivers.
By virtue of being able to track curtailment across our network in granular detail, we have managed to significantly reduce curtailment of our curtailable-connections customers.

Methodological Approach

  A Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) is installed at each curtailable-connection site providing live telemetry data into the DERMS. It measures communications status, generator output, and mode of operation.
  RTUs are also installed at constraint locations (physical parts of the network, e.g., transformers, cables which may become overloaded under certain conditions). These are identified through planning power load studies. These RTUs monitor current at the constraint and communications status.
  The DERMS design integrates network topology information. This maps constraints to associated curtailable connections under different network running conditions, including the sensitivity of the constraints to each curtailable connection. In general, a 1MW reduction in generation of a customer will cause <1MW reduction at the constraint. Each constraint is registered to a GSP.
  DERMS monitors constraints against the associated breach limit. When a constraint limit is breached, DERMS calculates the amount of access reduction required from curtailable connections linked to the constraint to alleviate the breach. This calculation factors in the real-time level of generation of each customer and the sensitivity of the constraint to each generator.
  Access reduction is issued to each curtailable-connection via the RTU until the constraint limit breach is mitigated.
  Multiple constraints can apply to a curtailable-connection and constraint breaches can occur simultaneously.
  Where multiple constraint breaches act upon a single curtailable-connection, we apportion the access reduction of that connection to the constraint breaches depending on the relative magnitude of the breaches.
  Where customer curtailment occurs without any associated constraint breach, we categorise the curtailment as non-constraint driven.
  Future developments will include the reason for non-constraint driven curtailment.


Quality Control Statement
The dataset is derived from data recorded by RTUs located at customer sites and constraint locations across our network. UKPN’s Ops Telecoms team monitors and maintains these RTUs to ensure they are providing accurate customer/network data. An alarms system notifies the team of communications failures which are attended to by our engineers as quickly as possible. RTUs can store telemetry data for prolonged periods during communications outages and then transmit data once communications are reinstated. These measures ensure we have a continuous stream of accurate data with minimal gaps. On the rare instances where there are issues with the raw data received from DERMS, we employ simple data cleaning algorithms such as forward filling.
RTU measurements of access reduction update on change or every 30 minutes in the absence of change. We also minimise post-processing of RTU data (e.g., we do not time average data). Using the raw data allows us to ascertain event start and end times of curtailment actions exactly and accurately determine access reductions experienced by our customers.

Assurance Statement
The dataset is generated and updated by a script which is scheduled to run daily. The script was developed by the DSO Data Science team in conjunction with the DSO Network Access team, the DSO Operations team, and the UKPN Ops Telecoms team to ensure correct interpretation of the RTU data streams. The underlying script logic has been cross-referenced with the developers and maintainers of the DERMS scheme to ensure that the data reflects how DERMS operates.
The outputs of the script were independently checked by the DSO Network Access team for accuracy of the curtailment event timings and access reduction prior to first publication on the Open Data Portal (ODP). The DSO Operations team conducts an ongoing review of the data as it is updated daily to verify that the operational expectations are reflected in the data.
The Data Science team has implemented automated logging which notifies the team of any issues when the script runs. This allows the Data Science team to investigate and debug any errors/warnings as soon as they happen.

Other
Download dataset information: Metadata (JSON)
Definitions of key terms related to this dataset can be found in the Open Data Portal Glossary: Open Data Portal Glossary
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The UK inflation rate was 3.8 percent in September 2025, unchanged from the previous two months, and the fastest rate of inflation since January 2024. Between September 2022 and March 2023, the UK experienced seven months of double-digit inflation, which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. Due to this long period of high inflation, UK consumer prices have increased by over 20 percent in the last three years. As of the most recent month, prices were rising fastest in the education sector, at 7.5 percent, with prices increasing at the slowest rate in the clothing and footwear sector. The Cost of Living Crisis High inflation is one of the main factors behind the ongoing Cost of Living Crisis in the UK, which, despite subsiding somewhat in 2024, is still impacting households going into 2025. In December 2024, for example, 56 percent of UK households reported their cost of living was increasing compared with the previous month, up from 45 percent in July, but far lower than at the height of the crisis in 2022. After global energy prices spiraled that year, the UK's energy price cap increased substantially. The cap, which limits what suppliers can charge consumers, reached 3,549 British pounds per year in October 2022, compared with 1,277 pounds a year earlier. Along with soaring food costs, high-energy bills have hit UK households hard, especially lower income ones that spend more of their earnings on housing costs. As a result of these factors, UK households experienced their biggest fall in living standards in decades in 2022/23. Global inflation crisis causes rapid surge in prices The UK's high inflation, and cost of living crisis in 2022 had its origins in the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the initial waves of the virus, global supply chains struggled to meet the renewed demand for goods and services. Food and energy prices, which were already high, increased further in 2022. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought an end to the era of cheap gas flowing to European markets from Russia. The war also disrupted global food markets, as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of cereal crops. As a result of these factors, inflation surged across Europe and in other parts of the world, but typically declined in 2023, and approached more usual levels by 2024.

As of 2022, heat pumps would be more attractive without electricity bill levies. If renewables obligation and feed-in tariffs were removed from electricity bills, ground source heat pump would be the cheapest heating source, amounting to *** British pounds after energy price cap. By comparison, the same heating source recorded a heating bill with electricity levies of *** British pounds, this means a difference of *** British pounds.

More than *** million customers in the United Kingdom were affected by the failure of their energy supplier in 2021 and in the first two months of 2022. Until *************, ** companies had gone bust, mostly related to a steep rise in natural gas prices, and the market cap on energy prices set by the UK's energy regulator. Avro was the largest energy supplier affected that year, with some ******* customers. Another large supplier, Bulb Energy, was placed under Special Administration.

As of 2022, heat pumps are more expensive than gas boilers among different heating systems in the United Kingdom. Air source heat pump price stood at *** and ***** British pounds, before and after energy price cap, respectively. By comparison, natural gas boiler had the least expensive taxes, at *** British pounds, ** British pounds less than the taxes seen in air source heat pump.