energy-bill

---
name: energy-bill
description: Reads a year of business gas and electricity bills and produces a line-by-line breakdown of what you are actually being charged for, with the questions to put to the supplier and the broker. Use when the energy bill has gone up, when a contract is ending, or when nobody in the business can explain what half the bill is.
---

# Find out what you are actually paying for on your energy bill

You give this twelve months of gas and electricity bills, the contract if you can find it, and whatever the broker sent you. You get back one table per meter showing the unit rate, the standing charge, the Climate Change Levy and the VAT separated out, a plain statement of whether you are on a contract, a deemed rate or an out-of-contract rate, and three short lists: what to ask the supplier for in writing, what to ask the broker, and what to fix before the contract ends. Phone photos of paper bills are fine. It never quotes a rate it has not read off your bill.

## What it does

1. **Collect twelve months per meter, and write down the meter numbers before anything else.** A pub with a cellar chiller and a separate flat above it can have two electricity supplies and one gas supply, on three different contracts, with three different end dates. Take every bill and statement for the last twelve months, the contract or letter of authority, and any email where a broker quoted you a price. At the top of the output write the supply number for each meter: MPAN for electricity (the long number in the grid box, starting with an S), MPRN for gas. Every later row belongs to one of those numbers. If a meter appears in the bills but you cannot find a contract for it, say so on its own line rather than assuming it shares the contract with the others, because a meter nobody has a contract for is usually the one sitting on the most expensive rate.

2. **Transcribe every bill into one row, with the days counted, before comparing anything.** The columns are: meter number, bill number, period start, period end, number of days billed, opening read, closing read, whether each read is actual or estimated, kWh used, unit rate in pence per kWh, standing charge in pence per day, standing charge total, Climate Change Levy total, subtotal before VAT, VAT rate, VAT amount, bill total. Type what is printed, not what you expect. If a bill shows two unit rates because the price changed mid-period, give it two rows. If a figure is not printed at all, write "not shown on bill" in that cell. A missing unit rate or a missing standing charge is a finding in its own right, because you cannot check a price the supplier has not shown you, and it is the first thing to ask for.

3. **Separate the four things you are paying for, because only one of them is the energy.** A non-domestic bill is a unit rate multiplied by kWh, plus a standing charge multiplied by days, plus the Climate Change Levy, plus VAT on the lot. British Gas Business describes the standing charge as "A fixed cost paid in addition to usage charges for gas and electricity" and the unit rate as "your price for the gas or electricity you use". EDF's published VAT and CCL booklet is blunt about where the levy sits: "CCL is chargeable only on units/kWh used and not on any other component of the bill such as standing charges." Work out each of the four as a percentage of the bill total and put it in the output. Owners who think they have an expensive unit rate often have an ordinary unit rate and a standing charge of over £1 a day on a meter that is barely used.

4. **Test the VAT rate against the published low-usage thresholds, because it is charged automatically and nobody checks it.** HMRC's VAT Notice 701/19 sets a de minimis: "Supplies of not more than an average rate of 33 kilowatt hours per day, 1,000 kilowatt hours per month, of electricity to one customer at any one of the customer's premises are subject to VAT at the reduced rate", and for gas "not more than an average rate of 5 therms or 145 kilowatt hours per day". EDF's booklet states the consequence plainly: "where VAT is charged at the reduced rate, the supply is automatically excluded from CCL", and that these low-usage concessions "are applied automatically at the time of each billing". So divide the kWh on each bill by the days billed and compare against 33 and 145. A small coffee shop or a one-room salon is frequently under the electricity threshold. Two warnings that matter in hospitality: where more than one meter is billed on an account the consumption is amalgamated across meters, and EDF's table records that by law supplies to "hotels, B&Bs and similar are not considered to be supplied for domestic use", so the domestic-use route is closed to them even where rooms are let. The low-usage route is not.

5. **Check the Climate Change Levy arithmetic against the published rate for the period.** HMRC publishes the main rates per kilowatt hour: £0.00775 for both electricity and gas from 1 April 2025, and £0.00801 from 1 April 2026, with the guidance noting these rates "do not apply to taxable commodities supplied to domestic consumers and charities for non-business use". Multiply the kWh on each bill by the rate that applied during that bill's period and compare with the levy line printed. Where a bill straddles 1 April, expect two figures. Flag any bill where the levy appears on a period the business was charged the reduced rate of VAT, and any bill where a levy has been applied to the standing charge rather than to units alone.

6. **Name which kind of arrangement each meter is actually on, and evidence it.** Ofgem's guidance separates two things that owners and even brokers use interchangeably. Out-of-contract rates are "the rates customers are put onto, as defined by the terms of their contract, when their current contract continues to apply after the fixed term period of a contract has expired." Deemed rates apply where there is no contract to continue, typically when a business moves into premises and starts using energy without agreeing anything. Ofgem says it directly: "Deemed rates are different from OoC rates. These terms are not interchangeable." The distinction is worth money, because Standard Licence Condition 7.3 requires suppliers to "take all reasonable steps to ensure that the terms of each of its Deemed Contracts is not unduly onerous", and Ofgem's test for that is whether "the deemed rate is much higher than an equivalent contracted rate, and that this difference between the deemed rate and the equivalent contracted rate is not otherwise justified". Out-of-contract rates are not covered by that guidance at all. Write which one applies to each meter, and what evidence says so.

7. **Find the broker's money, and ask for it in writing.** Ofgem's guidance for microbusinesses defines a third party intermediary as "organisations or individuals that give energy-related advice, aimed at helping you to buy energy and/or manage your energy needs", and states the problem in its own words: "it is not always clear to a consumer that the prices they are quoted include broker commissions, and what portion of the prices they are quoted goes to the broker." The lever is that suppliers have to tell you. Ofgem's guidance states that "Information on TPI costs that will be included in the bill the supplier sends you must be provided to all businesses via the Principal Terms and upon request", and Ofgem's April 2024 decision expanded "the requirement for a contract's principal terms to clearly display any broker fees from Micro Business consumers to all non-domestic customers" for contracts from 1 October 2024. Draft one short written request to the supplier asking for the TPI cost built into the rate for each meter, for each contract period covered. Record the answer against the unit rate so the owner can see the pence per kWh going to the broker.

8. **Check the reads, because an estimate is a loan you did not ask for.** Count the bills where the closing read is estimated rather than actual, and show them as a run: three estimates in a row on a meter is a reconciliation waiting to land. Compare each period's kWh per day against the same period the year before. A jump with an estimated read behind it is usually a billing artefact; a jump with actual reads at both ends is usually a piece of equipment. Also check the days. Standing charges are charged per day per meter whether or not you use a single unit, so add up the days billed across the twelve months and check the total lands near 365. Gaps and overlaps both happen, and both are worth a credit request.

9. **Write three lists, each with a pound figure and a deadline.** List one: ask the supplier, in writing, for the missing unit prices, the TPI cost per meter, a read-based rebill for any estimated period, and a credit for any levy or VAT charged at the wrong rate. List two: ask the broker what they were paid, over what term, and whether the payment was per kWh or a lump sum. List three: what has to happen before the contract ends, with the date and the notice position for each meter, and a line saying which meters are sitting on deemed or out-of-contract rates today and are therefore costing money every day they stay there. Put the contract end dates at the very top of the document. They are the only dates that expire.

## Then it checks

1. Every row names a specific meter number, and no row covers more than one meter.
2. Every rate in the output was read off a bill or a contract and names which document and which date it came from, with no figure carried over from a comparison site or a broker's quote.
3. The days billed across the twelve months are totalled per meter, and any gap or overlap against the calendar is named on its own line.
4. Every bill's arithmetic reproduces: kWh times unit rate, plus days times standing charge, plus the levy, plus VAT at the stated rate, equals the printed total, and any bill that does not reconcile is listed separately with the size of the difference.
5. Each meter is labelled as contracted, deemed, or out of contract, with the evidence named, and no meter is left unlabelled.
6. Every estimated read is counted and shown, and no consumption comparison is drawn between two periods that both end on an estimate without saying so.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never compare your unit rate to a price found online and call the difference an overcharge. Business energy is priced per meter, per term, on the day the contract was struck, and a rate from a switching site for a different consumption profile proves nothing. The only comparisons this makes are against your own contract and your own earlier bills.
- Never tell the owner they are owed a VAT or levy refund. This flags a threshold that appears to have been crossed and tells them to put it to the supplier and their accountant. HMRC's thresholds are applied by the supplier at billing, corrections are the supplier's to make, and a wrong declaration carries a penalty.
- Never sign, cancel or agree anything with a supplier or a broker. This produces the questions; the owner sends them.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's accountant or energy adviser to check before any claim is made or any contract is signed or terminated. It reads bills and states arithmetic. It is not advice on your supply contract or on your tax position.

## Built from
- Ofgem, "Third Party Intermediaries: what your microbusiness needs to know", https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/guidance/third-party-intermediaries-what-your-microbusiness-needs-know, published 14 October 2022, read 14 September 2026: the definition of a TPI, the microbusiness thresholds, and the right to be told the TPI cost included in the bill, which is the whole of step 7.
- Ofgem, "Ofgem confirms greater protection for businesses", https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/press-release/ofgem-confirms-greater-protection-businesses, 5 April 2024, read 14 September 2026: the extension of broker fee disclosure in principal terms to all non-domestic customers from 1 October 2024, which is what lets step 7 ask on behalf of a business that is not a microbusiness.
- Ofgem, "Guidance on Deemed Contracts", https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-11/Guidance%20on%20Deemed%20Contracts.pdf, published 6 November 2023, read 14 September 2026: the definitions separating deemed rates from out-of-contract rates, Standard Licence Condition 7.3, and the "significantly exceeds" test, which shaped step 6.
- HM Revenue & Customs, "VAT on fuel and power (VAT Notice 701/19)", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-fuel-and-power-notice-70119, last updated 8 September 2026, read 14 September 2026: the 33 kWh and 145 kWh per day de minimis limits and the reduced rate, which set the test in step 4.
- HM Revenue & Customs, "Climate Change Levy rates", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/climate-change-levy-rates, last updated 27 November 2025, read 14 September 2026: the main rates per kWh used to recompute the levy line in step 5.
- EDF, "VAT and CCL explained", https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/B32_Inline_AW15_Inline_1.pdf, no publication date shown on the document, read 14 September 2026: a supplier's own published statement that the levy applies only to units and not to standing charges, that reduced-rate supplies are excluded from the levy automatically, that multi-meter accounts are amalgamated for the threshold, and that hotels and B&Bs are not treated as domestic use.
- British Gas Business, "Understanding my business energy bill", https://www.britishgas.co.uk/business/help-and-support/billing-and-payments/how-to-read-my-bill, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: the supplier's own wording for standing charge and unit rate, used for the four-way split in step 3.

# energy-bill

## You are given
A folder of UK business gas and electricity bills for one business, covering up to twelve months. Formats vary: PDFs, phone photos of paper bills, screenshots. There may be several meters and several suppliers. You may also be given a contract, a broker email, or nothing but the bills. Read every file before writing anything.

## Produce
Three files in the working folder.

1. `energy-bill-lines.csv`, one row per bill per meter, columns in this exact order:
`meter_type` (electricity/gas), `supply_number` (MPAN or MPRN), `supplier`, `account_number`, `bill_number`, `period_start` (YYYY-MM-DD), `period_end`, `days_billed`, `opening_read`, `closing_read`, `read_basis` (actual/estimated/not shown), `kwh`, `kwh_per_day`, `unit_rate_p_per_kwh`, `standing_charge_p_per_day`, `standing_charge_total_gbp`, `ccl_total_gbp`, `subtotal_ex_vat_gbp`, `vat_rate_pct`, `vat_gbp`, `bill_total_gbp`, `source_file`.
Where a bill does not print a figure, write `not shown on bill`. Where a bill carries two unit rates, write two rows.

2. `energy-bill-findings.csv`, one row per finding, columns:
`finding_id`, `supply_number`, `bill_number`, `finding_type` (one of: arithmetic mismatch, missing unit price, missing standing charge, estimated read run, day gap, day overlap, vat threshold crossed, ccl on non-unit charge, ccl rate mismatch, no contract found), `what_the_bill_says`, `what_it_should_be`, `difference_gbp`, `source_file`.
Sort by `difference_gbp` descending, blanks last.

3. `energy-bill-summary.md`, under 700 words, British English, no em dash characters. It opens with a table of every meter showing supply number, supplier, contract end date if known, and today's unit rate and standing charge. Then three headed lists: `Ask the supplier in writing`, `Ask the broker`, `Fix before the contract ends`. Every item names the meter, the bills involved and a pound figure or the words `amount unknown, ask for the figure`.

## Rules
- Type only what is printed. Never estimate a rate, a read or a pack figure, and never fill a gap from a comparison site, a broker quote or your own knowledge of energy prices.
- Recompute and check: `kwh x unit_rate` plus `days_billed x standing_charge` plus `ccl` plus VAT at the printed rate should equal `bill_total_gbp`. Any bill that does not reconcile is a finding, not a correction. Do not alter the transcribed figures to make them balance.
- Compute `kwh_per_day` and flag any bill period averaging 33 kWh/day or less for electricity, or 145 kWh/day or less for gas, as `vat threshold crossed`. Flag it as a question. Do not state that VAT was charged wrongly and do not state that money is owed.
- Keep meters separate throughout. Never merge two supply numbers into one row or one total.
- Do not send, sign, cancel or submit anything anywhere.

## Return
The three file paths, the number of bills read, the number of meters found, the count of findings by `finding_type`, and a list of any file you could not read and why.