British Gas Electricity

Our interest: we have no affiliate arrangement with British Gas and earn nothing if you switch to them. The link on this page goes to British Gas’s own site. We mention it because it is one of the six suppliers in this category, not because it pays us.

British Gas charges 26.998p per kWh for electricity on its Standard Variable tariff in London, with a 47.109p a day standing charge. Move to the North West and the same tariff, read from the same British Gas system on the same afternoon of 7 October 2026, costs 28.447p per kWh and 52.223p a day. Same supplier, same product, 1.449p and 5.114p apart.

That is the first thing to understand about any British Gas electricity quote you see written down, including the one on this page. There is no national British Gas electricity price. There are fourteen regional ones, and the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is worth real money on an annual bill: British Gas’s own projection for 2,700 kWh is £900.86 in London and £958.66 in the North West.

The figure British Gas puts on its own price-cap page — 26.32p a unit and 54.83p a day — is not its price either. It is the Ofgem price cap average for October to December 2026, to the decimal place. Useful as a benchmark, misleading as a quote.

What it actually costs, and why the number moves with your postcode

British Gas publishes its Standard Variable rates through a postcode lookup. Two regions, both monthly Direct Debit, both read on 7 October 2026:

Payment method moves it again, and in the direction you would not guess. In London, prepayment is the cheapest unit rate at 26.16p with a 47.1p standing charge, while paying on receipt of a bill is the dearest at 28.494p and 54.33p. Direct Debit sits between them. British Gas separately claims paying by Direct Debit saves £106 a year, which is a statement about its whole bill rather than about the electricity unit rate.

One change this quarter is worth knowing because it is temporary and it is not a British Gas decision. There is no VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, while gas still carries 5%. Ofgem says plainly that its cap figures “can’t be compared directly with earlier periods” because of it. If your electricity looks cheaper than last winter, that is part of the reason, and it runs out at the end of March.

Standing charge first, unit rate second

At 47.109p a day in London, the standing charge costs £171.95 a year before a single unit is used, and £190.61 in the North West. On British Gas’s own 2,700 kWh projection that is 19% of the London bill and 20% of the North West one.

It matters because every low-usage household is paying a fixed entry fee. A flat using 1,500 kWh in London pays £171.95 standing charge against £404.97 of electricity — the fixed part is 30% of the bill. The arithmetic runs the other way for heavy users, which is why comparing suppliers on unit rate alone is a mistake if your consumption is low.

Economy 7 shifts the shape of the deal rather than the size. In London, British Gas Economy 7 pays 33.714p by day and 14.92p at night, on a 46.634p standing charge, with a projection of £867.34. The night rate is less than half the single rate, but the day rate is 6.716p above it. Economy 7 only pays if you can genuinely move load into the night; if you cannot, it is the more expensive tariff.

The time-of-use tariffs, and what each one asks of you

This is the part of the British Gas range that is genuinely competitive, and every one of them requires a smart meter and, in most cases, Direct Debit.

• EV Power — off-peak electricity at 9.5p/kWh between 12am and 5am, or an equivalent 7.125p with Hive Power+. British Gas states it “does not work with Economy 7”.
• Heat Power — half-price electricity 1pm to 4pm and 12am to 7am, every day. That is 70 hours a week. Credit customers only.
• Charge Power — 50% off the unit rate from 12am to 5am, aimed at home batteries.
• PeakSave — existing customers get 8 hours of half-price electricity every Sunday, 9am to 5pm.
• Hive Solar Saver — up to 25% off electricity for Hive solar or battery installed after 22 May 2024.

Read the standing-charge clause on all of them. British Gas states for Heat Power that “you will still pay the full daily standing charge applicable to your tariff”, and the same applies to Charge Power. The discount is on units, never on the fixed charge.

One trap in the Electric Driver terms, which British Gas writes out itself: “when this tariff applies and you don’t have an electricity smart meter you will be charged the peak unit rate at all times.” Peak runs 5.01am to 11.59pm. Sign up without a working smart meter and you get the worst of both.

Fixed tariffs and the exit fees

British Gas’s own product catalogue lists the exit fee against each tariff, and they are not uniform:

• Standard Variable — no exit fee, no end date
• Winter Warmer 2026 — £75, ends 31 December 2026
• The Longer Fix — £100, end dates from 31 October 2026 to 28 February 2027 depending on version
• Fixed Future — £150, ends 31 October 2027

Across the full catalogue of 67 tariff records the exit fee ranges from £5 to £200, with £50 the most common value. Whether the fee is charged per fuel or per account is not published; the terms say only that any exit fees “will be sent by email or post and will be in your online account”. Ask before you fix if you think you might move.

British Gas also advertises three acquisition tariffs by name — Fix and Fall, Fixed Tracker and Fixed Fixed — and publishes a rate for none of them. Fixed Tracker is described as “guaranteed to pay up to £60 less” than the cap; Fix and Fall fixes for two years with a price review against the cap after twelve months. You cannot see either price without completing a quote, which is worth knowing before you spend twenty minutes on one.

Where British Gas is beaten, and by what

The service record is the weakest part of the case. Citizens Advice scores British Gas 2.61 out of 5 for customer service in its April to June 2026 table, ranking it 14th of the 16 suppliers it ranks. Octopus is on 3.67, E.ON Next 3.71, Outfox Energy 4.03. Only Utilita (2.53) and TruEnergy (1.38) score lower. Citizens Advice weights that score 35% on complaints, 30% on ease of contact, 25% on billing and metering.

Complaints that escalate are running high. The Energy Ombudsman accepted 54.90 disputes per 100,000 domestic accounts against British Gas in Q2 2026 — the second highest of the eight suppliers it charts, behind only ScottishPower on 65.10. The trend over four quarters reads 49.5, 53.0, 58.1, 54.9. On signposting — telling unhappy customers the Ombudsman exists — British Gas was lowest of the eight at 41% against a sector figure of 53%.

Ofgem has had cause to act. In May 2026 British Gas settled an Ofgem investigation into its treatment of prepayment meter customers between 2018 and 2021 with a £20 million payment into Ofgem’s Voluntary Redress Fund and up to £70 million of energy debt written off for vulnerable customers. Ofgem took it as “alternative action”, so there was no financial penalty. A separate compliance engagement on smart meter obligations, opened in July 2024, remains open; British Gas is one of four suppliers still in reduced engagement on smart-mode obligations, which Ofgem is careful to say “is not a finding of non-compliance”.

And the live prices are behind a quote. Of the named tariffs above, only Standard Variable, Economy 7 and the prepayment rates can be read without handing over a postcode and an email address.

What British Gas does well

Support for people struggling with bills is substantial and specific. The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 off the electricity bill for winter 2026/2027, applied as credit, or a Post Office voucher for prepayment customers. DWP letters go out between 20 October and 31 December 2026, and all payments land by 31 March 2027 at the latest.

The British Gas Energy Trust is an independent charity funded solely by British Gas since 2004, and it helps households regardless of supplier — it says it has supported over 2.2 million people. British Gas also cites a £140 million customer support package and says it helped over 300,000 of its own customers manage debt last year.

Prepayment customers get £10 of emergency credit and Friendly Credit, which blocks disconnection on Sundays, English bank holidays and between 6pm and 9am Monday to Saturday. The Priority Services Register covers the over-65s, anyone reliant on medical equipment, families with children under five and the recently bereaved, and brings bills in Braille, large print or audio, a free annual gas safety check subject to eligibility, and a free SignVideo BSL relay weekdays 9am to 5pm.

Figures were taken from each provider's own published terms on 7 October 2026. Variable rates can change at any time — confirm the current rate with the provider before applying.