Utilities: Securing you value for money
20 March 2026
If you live in a flat, house or Independent Living scheme that has communal lighting or heating, or shared outdoor lighting that bpha supplies, you contribute towards the cost of the energy used. You do this either through a service charge, or by making payments to Switch2.
Value for money
We aim to get you the best value we can for your energy. This has been even more important over recent years when we’ve all seen large fluctuations in utility costs.
Keeping utility costs down typically means entering into a contract with a supplier for a fixed time period when there is a good price available. Committing to a fixed rate means unit costs are set; they don’t change until the contract finishes. We work with an independent energy broker that monitors costs and advises us when there is a good rate available.
A two-year contract fixed until March 2027
As you may have seen in recent news, ongoing conflict in Iran has created significant volatility in global energy markets, with early indications suggesting that the July 2026 energy price cap could rise by at least 10%.
However, your energy costs with us remain fully protected. Our current supply contracts are fixed until March 2027, which means the current market turbulence has no impact on your rates at this stage. You will continue to benefit from price stability while the wider market experiences fluctuations.
Next steps
We’re already taking steps to protect customers beyond the end of our current contract period. We have begun looking at our options to start exploring future energy contract options from April 2027 onwards, which includes the potential to secure a longer-term fixed rate contract. This approach could protect us from future market volatility and provide stable, and predictable energy costs.
Better for the environment
We are delighted that the current electricity contract is ‘green’. This means our electricity consumption is generated by zero carbon sources, rather than oil, coal and gas, which is known as ‘brown’ energy, is non-renewable and emits pollutants.
The difference in costs
The current tariff is below the April 2026 energy price cap for gas and slightly above the cap for electricity. Since the tariff was set in April 2025, this is the first time that the price cap for electricity is lower than the tariff, so there has been an overall saving (assuming usage has stayed the same) to date. With predicted increases of over 10% for the July 2026 price cap, we should continue to see benefit of our fixed contracts costs over the coming months.
In the table below you can see the price in pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). One kilowatt hour is the amount of energy you would use if you kept a 1,000-watt appliance running for an hour.
What does that mean? According to EDF, this is how it works for a TV with a 500 W power rating (kW rating of 0.5).
- Multiply 0.5 by the time you spend watching the TV – say four hours a day. That means your 0.5 kW TV uses 2 kWh per day (0.5 x 4 = 2 kWh)
- If your electricity price per kWh is £0.34, your TV will cost £0.68 per day to run (2kWh x £0.34).
If your usage stays the same, the energy part of your service charge will come down next April. If usage increases, then the costs could remain similar, or increase.
|
|
Your previous tariff April 24 – April 25 (pence/kWh) |
National energy price cap April – June 2026 |
Your current tariff April 25 – April 27 (pence/kWh) |
|
Gas |
7.00p |
5.74p |
4.50p |
|
Electric |
29.01p |
24.67p |
25.30p |
KW/h prices are taken from sites with ‘average usage’
Standing charges vary significantly between sites and so have not been included but have increased by approximately 2 pence per day on average
