Start with the number that runs whether anyone is at home or not. Under the Great Britain price cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026, Ofgem sets the average electricity standing charge for Direct Debit customers at 54.83 pence a day and the average unit rate at 26.32 pence per kWh, so a 30-day period costs £16.45 before a single kilowatt-hour is used (Ofgem's price cap unit rates and standing charges). The condition that changes it is the tariff: the cap protects standard variable tariffs, so a fixed deal carries its own rates and those capped figures become a benchmark rather than a bill.

Copy four fields before interpreting anything

One person reads the statement aloud, the other writes it down. Four fields settle most disagreements: the fuel, the start and end dates, the quantity with its unit, and whether the reading is actual or estimated. Keep electricity and gas on separate lines. A gas meter records volume, and the supplier converts that volume into kWh; the kWh figure printed on the statement is the one to copy, never a conversion either of you invents.

Ofgem's explanation of how a bill is calculated separates the unit rate from the daily standing charge and lists what sits behind both: wholesale costs, network costs, policy costs, operating and debt costs, the supplier's earnings before interest and tax, and VAT (how your electricity or gas bill is calculated). None of that is visible from a thermostat, which is why the record comes before any change to the equipment.

Two lines of arithmetic, done together

As an example, take an electricity statement covering 30 days with an actual reading of 240 kWh, priced at the October to December 2026 cap averages above.

  • Standing charge: 30 × 54.83p = 1,644.9p, or £16.45.
  • Units: 240 × 26.32p = 6,316.8p, or £63.17.
  • Total: £16.45 + £63.17 = £79.62. Ofgem states there is no VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, so nothing is added on top (Ofgem's cap rates).

Daily use is 240 ÷ 30 = 8 kWh. That single figure is what makes two statements of unequal length comparable, and it is also what a shorter period hides: 224 kWh across 28 days is the same 8 kWh a day, on a total that looks 16 kWh smaller. If the two of you want the units explained before the money, work through kilowatts and kilowatt-hours at the kitchen table first.

What a European average can and cannot tell you

Eurostat puts households at 26.0% of EU final energy consumption in 2024, with 61.5% of residential energy going on space heating, 15.6% on water heating and 14.8% on lighting and most electrical appliances (Eurostat on energy consumption in households). That EU-wide split is a good reason to look at heating before hunting for a standby light. It is not a statement about one address, and the same Eurostat page shows how far countries diverge: Dutch households drew 70.3% of their space-heating energy from natural gas in 2024, while Swedish households relied mainly on derived heat.

So use the European figure to choose where to look, and the statement in front of you to say what happened. The two answer different questions, and swapping them is the commonest way a kitchen-table comparison goes wrong.

Finish with a question a supplier can answer

Close the session with one written question, addressed to the supplier and specific enough to be answered in a sentence. Useful forms:

  • Which reading on this statement is actual and which is estimated?
  • What exact dates does this usage graph cover?
  • Does this figure cover the whole property or one meter?
  • Is this payment a charge for the period shown, or a fixed monthly instalment against the account?

Send the statement reference, not the account number, and keep personal details out of any message you share with each other. Leave every control where it is until the answer arrives; a record you can explain is a better starting point than a changed setting nobody can attribute. When the answer does arrive, the next thing worth separating is price from quantity, which is the subject of why a lower bill does not always mean less energy, and the figure printed on an appliance is the subject of reading an energy label together.

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