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Standing charges: what they are, and can you dodge them?

It’s the bit of the bill that feels the most unfair: a daily charge you pay before you’ve used a single unit. Here’s what the standing charge really is — and whether you can escape it.

• What it is. A fixed daily fee on each fuel — electricity and gas separately — that you pay just for being connected, used or not. It’s on the bill rain or shine.
• What it pays for. The pipes and wires, keeping your supply on, meter upkeep, and some industry-wide costs that get loaded onto it. Not glamorous, but real.
• Can you avoid it? A few zero-standing-charge tariffs exist — but they bury the cost in a higher unit rate instead. So they only win if you use very little energy; a normal or heavy user usually pays more. It’s a swap, not a freebie.
• The real move. For most homes, the standing charge isn’t where the saving is — the unit rate and your usage are. What’s really driving your bill →

Whether a no-standing-charge tariff helps depends entirely on how much you use — which is exactly the sort of thing Joulely works out from your own usage, not a typical home.