Guides · Billing

How to read a business electricity bill

Utilities Made Simple · 7 minute read

Business electricity bills are complicated by design — but only about eight numbers on them actually matter. Here's the tour, top to bottom.

The supply details

MPAN — the 13-digit number in the boxed "S" grid identifying your supply (our MPAN guide decodes it). Check the address next to it: billing the wrong meter after a move is more common than you'd hope. The meter serial number should match the physical meter on your wall.

The charges

• Unit rate(s) — pence per kWh. Multi-rate meters (day/night, evening/weekend) show one line per register. Check them against your contract confirmation; transcription errors happen.
• Standing charge — pence per day. See our standing charges guide.
• Capacity / availability charge — half-hourly sites only: a fee per kVA of agreed capacity. If your actual maximum demand sits far below the agreed kVA, you may be paying for headroom you don't need.
• Climate Change Levy (CCL) — a government tax per kWh on business energy. Charities and some low-usage supplies are exempt or reduced — worth checking if you qualify.
• VAT — normally 20%, but 5% applies to low usage (under 33 kWh/day of electricity on average) and to qualifying charitable or domestic-use portions. Wrongly-applied VAT is one of the most common refunds we recover.

The readings

Look for E (estimated) against meter readings. A long run of estimates means your bills are fiction that gets trued-up later — often painfully. Submitting monthly reads, or getting a smart/AMR meter, keeps bills real.

Five errors worth hunting for

1. Unit rates that don't match your signed contract
2. VAT at 20% where 5% applies
3. CCL charged to an exempt organisation
4. Estimated reads drifting far from actual usage
5. Out-of-contract rates appearing after a missed renewal