Heat Customers
How you're billed and how your charges are calculated will depend on various factors, including whether your heat network's registered with Heat Trust and whether it's metered.
If your heat network is metered, then your heat bill or account statement (and any in-home display) will usually show your:
- Variable charges: Charges for your heat usage (consumption). These are usually shown as a unit price per kWh and the amount of units (kWh) of heat consumed within a given period. These charges vary according to how much heat you’ve used, or are deemed by your heat supplier to have used.
- Fixed charges: Standing charges, which are usually shown as a unit price per day and the number of days covered within a given period. Standing charges accrue daily at a fixed amount, regardless of how much heat you’ve used (for example, they’re still payable for days that you were away on holiday or didn't turn your heating on). They represent your share of your heat supplier’s running costs, which usually include maintenance and repair costs for the heat network. Standing charges can vary significantly by heat network.
The example heat bill below, produced by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), uses 2021 prices that may not be representative of latest prices.
Unmetered heat networks will use a different method to apportion charges between properties on the heat network.
What your heat supplier charges you for your heat unit cost will be affected by:
1) The input energy costs for your heat network:
- Heat networks need input energy that their energy centre or communal boiler uses to generate the heat that's then distributed to the end consumers. Heat suppliers buy this input energy (which is usually gas) on the commercial energy market, where commercial energy prices aren't subject to any price cap. Because heat networks are classed by government as commercial energy supplies, Ofgem's domestic price cap for mains gas and electricity consumers doesn't apply to your heat charges.
- Commercial gas prices increased dramatically during the energy crisis. Heat suppliers may not have been exposed to these increased prices straight away, but only when their existing contract with their commercial gas supplier ended. Where the heat supplier then had to agree a new commercial gas contract at a higher price, the impact of this will continue to be felt until the end of that contract even if prices in the market have since reduced. The effect of this on end consumers' heat bills will therefore depend on when the heat supplier had to agree their commercial gas contract, what price they were able to negotiate, and when and how they passed any price increase onto consumers. Where the heat supplier is a building owner, they may renegotiate their commercial energy contracts annually (e.g. on 1 January or 1 April).
2) How efficient your heat network is:
- Many gas-powered heat networks operate at only around 35-45% efficiency, with 55-65% of their heat lost from plant and pipework before reaching consumers. The best performing gas-powered heat networks should achieve 65%+ efficiency levels.
- Lower efficiency means higher bills, as more heat has to be used to compensate for what’s lost. Your kWh unit cost will therefore usually have been calculated as the input commercial gas cost multiplied by a factor that accounts for these heat losses.
- Government funding exists to help heat suppliers improve the efficiency of their heat networks, and heat suppliers can apply for it here.
Heat prices are unregulated. There are some minimum metering and billing requirements that apply to all heat networks under law, which we summarise further down this page. But unfortunately these don't include any price regulation or limitation on back-billing, and Ofgem's 12-month back-billing limit for mains gas and electricity consumers doesn't apply to heat networks. Future protections are planned by government, but not until Ofgem becomes the heat networks regulator in 2026.
If you're on a Heat Trust registered heat network:
As a voluntary Scheme, Heat Trust can't regulate pricing. However, we do require the heat networks registered with us to meet our additional standards about billing and price transparency, and about supporting consumers in payment difficulty. Our Scheme's consumer protections include prohibiting back-billing beyond 12 months where the heat supplier is at fault (e.g. if they've failed to obtain or use accurate meter readings). We also require the heat suppliers for our registered heat networks to give consumers 31 days' notice of any price changes.
If your heat network is registered with Heat Trust, see here for the additional standards that we apply to your heat supplier. If you're not sure if your heat network's registered with us, you can check this here.
If you're not on a Heat Trust registered heat network:
If your heat network's not registered with us, see here for other sources of information and advice.
In addition:
- If you're a leaseholder, and your heat charges are included in your building service charges, Section 20B of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 prohibits a landlord (i.e. your freeholder or managing agent) from seeking to recover service charge costs that were incurred more than 18 months before they demand them (unless they’ve previously notified you that they’ve been incurred). The Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) publishes a specific factsheet here about leaseholders’ rights when being billed for service charges.
- The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives consumers general protections from unfair contract terms and notices, and Schedule 2 of the Act states that 'unfair' contract terms include: 'A term which has the object or effect of giving the trader the discretion to decide the price payable under the contract after the consumer has become bound by it, where no price or method of determining the price is agreed when the consumer becomes bound.’ You may be able to report unfair trading to your local Trading Standards office, which you can look up here.
- When complaining about charges or billing periods (e.g. back-billing), make sure you're contacting the right person. The company issuing the heat bills can sometimes be a subcontractor acting on another entity's instructions. We explain this further under 'Who is my heat supplier?' here.
If you're a heat network consumer, and you’d like to get an indication of your annual heating and hot water cost for a similar-sized home if it had an individual gas boiler, you can use our Heat Cost Calculator here. Please note though that its results are indicative, for information only, and can’t give an exact like-for-like comparison for any individual consumer's situation. As explained above, Heat Trust can't regulate pricing.
The Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations 2014, as amended in 2015 and 2020, apply to all heat networks in England, Wales and Scotland.
Metering rules
Under these UK government regulations, all newly built multioccupancy buildings on heat networks are usually required to:
- Install accurate heat meters in each individual home that measure, record and display each home’s heating and hot water usage (their ‘consumption’).
- Base consumers’ bills on readings taken from these heat meters.
- Install temperature control devices in each home that enable consumers to adjust how much heat they use.
Older heat networks may also be required to do this, where it’s cost-effective and feasible (or if it later becomes cost-effective and feasible, for example during planned building renovations).
(Pictures of heat meters, including meters installed inside Heat Interface Units: photo credits Switch2 and Vital Energi.)
(Pictures of a heat meter and in-home display: photo credit Secure Meters Ltd.)
(Pictures of 'pay as you go' pre-payment devices: photo credit Switch2.)
Where individual heat meters aren’t required to be used, then your heat supplier must usually install heat cost allocators (HCAs), thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) and hot water meters in each home, if it is (or becomes) cost-effective and feasible to do so:
- An HCA is a small electronic device fitted to a radiator that measures, records and displays the radiator’s heat output.
- A TRV enables you to adjust and control how hot a radiator gets, and therefore how much heat it uses.
- A hot water meter measures, records and displays your home’s hot water consumption.
(Picture of a TRV: photo credit Switch2. Picture of an HCA: photo credit Data Energy Management Services.)
Heat suppliers are responsible for ensuring that all installed meters or HCAs operate continuously and correctly, are properly maintained, and are periodically inspected for errors.
Billing rules
If you have a heat meter or HCA, then by law your heat supplier must ensure that:
- Your bills for heating and hot water are accurate and based on consumption.
- You receive a bill at least once a year that’s based on your actual consumption (rather than estimated consumption).
- You receive an explanation of how your bill was calculated, that splits out both fixed and variable charges (for example, your consumption may vary but your contribution to network maintenance and repairs might be a fixed cost).
- You have the option to request electronic billing.
If it’s cost-effective and feasible to do so, your heat supplier must also provide you with the following billing information at least twice a year (or quarterly if you’ve requested electronic billing):
- The current energy prices charged to you.
- Information about your consumption.
- A comparison with your previous year’s consumption (if available), if possible as a graph.
- Contact information for organisations who can advise on energy efficiency improvements.
You can find the government’s guidance on the Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations here. The regulations contain exemptions for certain specific types of buildings such as supported housing and student accommodation.
If you believe that your heat supplier isn’t complying with these regulations, you can report this to the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
If your home has an individual meter, the most important things you can do to protect yourself against billing issues are:
1) Find your heat meter. It will be separate to your electricity meter. Sometimes it’s inside the Heat Interface Unit (HIU) that brings hot water into your home, with the display visible through a window.
2) Read your meter as soon as you first move in and at regular intervals afterwards (ideally at least quarterly).
3) Find out if your heat supplier also reads your meter (remotely or in person), or if you have to send your own meter readings to your supplier, and how often this should happen.
4) Send your own meter readings to your heat supplier if you’re required to do so, or if you have the option to do so voluntarily.
5) Keep copies of all the meter readings you take.
6) Compare your own meter readings with those given on your bills and raise any discrepancies with your heat supplier as soon as possible.
If you have a meter, an in-home display (IHD) and/or a pre-payment (‘pay as you go’) device, your heat supplier should provide you with guidance on how to use this to view your consumption. You can often find guides and Frequently Asked Questions on the website of the company that’s sent you your heat bill.