Sunday, 6th. September 2026

Wandering into the kitchen at 8 o’clock this morning to make a cup of tea I noticed my energy display was showing expenditure of £1.02. It was showing £1.02 yesterday but prior to that it nearly always showed £1.00. My interest was piqued: what in my house is using 2p more electricity than usual in the 8 hours from midnight to 8am?

This bothers me partly because I am on a very tight budget but also because of my background in energy, energy efficiency and doing my bit to reduce my impact on climate change.

Two pence – which equates to 6p a day – may not sound a lot but with a total daily energy bill – gas and electricity – of about £1.80, it is a lot of money. Repeat that every day for a week and a month…

The only culprit I could think of was a new electrical device I installed a few days ago and which replaced an older device. I investigated.

I was saddened to discover that the new device is rated at 5 watts whilst the old one was 3 watts, which obviously is not helpful. My question was this: could that 2 watt difference explain 6p a day increase on my electricity bill?

First of all it is important to note that this device is on 24 hours a day so a 2Wh difference equates to 48Wh a day. On my current electricity tariff the cost of this is 1.07p per day extra compared with the device it replaces. That is the electricity cost alone not including the Standing Charge, which is 53p per day. For the month of August 2026 my average daily electricity charge was 95p and my daily standing charge was 53p – 64% and 36% of the total respectively.

The answer to my question is – no. I estimate that a 2 watt-hour difference could explain up to about 2p a day but not the 6p my smart meter is showing me.

However, in many ways that is not the point of this exercise. What it shows is that even a gadget with a low energy rating of just a few watts, if on for 24 hours a day, can use a surprising amount of electricity.

Back in my working days one of my many jobs was to explain energy, energy efficiency and climate change to a wide range of people, from politicians and sheltered accommodation residents to pub landlords and policy-makers. Explaining energy units, energy bills, standing charges, energy consumption of various household appliances – and how to save energy – was not always easy, but I usually got the message over.

For example, which uses more energy: a 7W LED light bulb or a 3kW kettle? Well, the answer is perhaps not as simple as it seems because it depends on how long the appliance is ‘on’. Thus a 3,000-watt kettle may be on for only 5 minutes – the time it takes to boil water – and therefore uses 250 watt-hours. A lamp left on for 10 hours will use 70 watt-hours. All of a sudden the difference between a 3,000W and a 7W appliance does not seem as great.

The point is, some electrical gadgets are on for longer than others – and some are on 24 hours a day. My 5W smart lighting hub uses 120 watt-hours over 24 hours.

Those that are on 24 hours a day constitute the ‘base load’ of our homes. Refrigerators, wi-fi routers, televisions on ‘stand-by’, smart lighting hubs and so on. It is these devices that, despite having low energy ratings, consume an inordinate amount of electricity.

So, a mystery remains: something in my home is using more electricity than usual and the smart-lighting hub explains only part of the difference. I wonder what it could be?

HOWEVER… I’ve just made a pot of coffee so I shall endeavour to not only enjoy the Italian blend but also to relax and try not to think about my next electricity bill!