Electricity cost calculator
Enter an appliance’s power and how long it runs to see what it costs per hour, day, month and year. It uses the electricity price where you live, which you can change to the rate on your bill.
A month of running costs
£8.01 a month
26.3p for each hour it runs, and £96.07 a year.
On the label or in the manual. A kilowatt (kW) is 1,000 W.
Standby, thermostats and off-peak use
Heaters and fridges switch on and off to hold a temperature. 100% for anything that runs flat out.
Drawn while plugged in and not running. Usually under 1 W.
| Period | Cost | Energy | CO2e |
|---|---|---|---|
| An hour of use | 26.3p | 1.00 kWh | 217 g |
| A day, on average | 26.3p | 1.00 kWh | 217 g |
| A month | £8.01 | 30.4 kWh | 6.6 kg |
| A year | £96.07 | 365 kWh | 79.4 kg |
How we calculated this
Energy is power multiplied by time. 1,000 W running for an hour uses 1.00 kWh.
A day is the average across the week, a month is a twelfth of a 365-day year.
Electricity costs 26.32p/kWh. That is the published figure for the United Kingdom, 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2026, from Ofgem. Average for England, Scotland and Wales, paying by Direct Debit. No VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Standing charges are left out: you pay them whether or not the appliance runs.
Emissions use 0.217 kg CO2e per kWh, the lifecycle intensity of electricity generated in the United Kingdom in 2025, from Ember, via Our World in Data. Lifecycle means building the power stations and supplying their fuel are counted too. It is the grid’s average, not the particular power station an extra appliance brings on.