Hi all, hoping for some advice as we're really struggling to get anywhere with our supplier.
We recently moved into a 2-bed, 800 sq ft new-build flat in London (3 adults). We're on a communal heat network — one central boiler for the whole building (~27 flats), with an individual meter in our flat measuring our usage. Electricity is billed separately.
Our charges via Energy Billing Ltd:
- Unit rate: 31.59p/kWh
- Standing charge: 72.66p/day (£265/year before we use anything)
- We've spent roughly £50 in the last 7.5 days, with the heating off — hot water only
That's projecting to around £200+/month just for hot water, which feels completely insane. For context, our previous flat cost us around £120/month for both gas heating AND electricity combined.
When we queried it, the developer told us "£6 a day is normal for London." Energy Billing told us our consumption is actually below average for the building, and that one flat is paying upwards of £10/day (the largest flats are 3 beds). That's somehow meant to be reassuring?
For comparison, the Ofgem gas price cap rate is around 5.74p/kWh. We're paying 31.59p — over 5x that. Southwark Council (our borough) charges 9.67p/kWh for equivalent new-build metered flats. We're paying more than 3x that.
We know heat networks aren't covered by the price cap, but Ofgem has regulated them since January 2026 and suppliers are required to charge "fair and not disproportionate" prices.
Two questions really:
- Is this within the range of what people on heat networks are actually paying, or is something wrong here (faulty meter, charges being misallocated, etc.)?
- Is there anything practical we can do to bring costs down, or push back on the tariff?
Any advice from people who've navigated this would be massively appreciated. We're not sure if we've just been unlucky with an expensive building, or if there's a genuine issue worth escalating.
Thank you!!