Business energy suppliers compared for care homes

Last reviewed 2 September 2026 by Utilities Made Simple · independent, whole-of-market, supplier-paid — how we are paid

We price care home energy every week and the pattern is consistent: two homes of similar size on similar rates can pay very different amounts, and the difference is almost never the headline unit price. Here is what to compare instead.

1. How the supplier handles the 5% VAT declaration

Most care homes qualify for 5% VAT and Climate Change Levy exemption under the 60% domestic use rule — residents live there, so the majority of the energy is domestic. This is the single biggest variable in a care home's energy cost, worth the 15% VAT difference plus 0.801p per kWh.

Suppliers differ enormously in how well they process the declaration, how quickly they apply it, and whether they will backdate it up to four years. Ask, before you sign, how their VAT declaration process works and what their turnaround is. See VAT and CCL on business energy.

2. Whether they price a 24-hour profile properly

A care home does not look like an office. Consumption is flat and continuous: heating and hot water around the clock, laundry, catering, lifts, call systems, nurse stations, and no weekend drop-off. That is a good load shape from a supplier's point of view — predictable, high load factor — and suppliers who understand it price it more keenly than those working off a generic small-business profile.

Larger homes and groups on half-hourly meters see this most clearly: 19–24p per kWh is typical for half-hourly electricity against 22–30p per kWh for standard business meters.

3. Billing accuracy, because finance has to rely on it

Care groups run on tight, forecast budgets. A supplier that estimates for eight months and then issues a large catch-up bill creates a genuine cash problem regardless of the unit rate. Ask about meter reading arrangements, automated reads, and whether consolidated billing across sites is available.

4. Credit terms and group arrangements

Multi-home groups should be looking at a single contract with staggered site end dates, one point of contact and consolidated invoicing. Not all suppliers do this well, and the ones that do will often improve terms to win the whole group rather than a single home.

5. What happens when something goes wrong at 2am

A care home cannot lose power. Ask about the supplier's emergency escalation, whether the site can be flagged as priority, and how a supply failure is handled out of hours. Register vulnerable residents on the network operator's Priority Services Register — that is with the network company, not the supplier, and it is free.

Why we are not ranking named suppliers here

Because the ranking would be wrong within a month, and because the right supplier for a 30-bed independent home is often not the right one for a 12-home group. Pricing moves weekly, appetite for particular load shapes changes, and a supplier that is keen on the sector in March may not be in September. Anyone publishing a fixed league table of "best suppliers for care homes" is publishing last quarter's market.

What we would actually do

1. Check the VAT rate first, before pricing anything. Getting from 20% to 5% usually beats any rate negotiation, and it may be reclaimable four years back.
2. Get twelve months of consumption per site, half-hourly where available.
3. Price the whole group on one day across the panel, with the load shape explained to each supplier rather than left to a default profile.
4. Compare total annual cost, not unit rates — standing charges at 45–65p a day across a dozen sites are not a rounding error.

If you run a care home or a group and want this done properly, send us a recent bill for one site and we will start there: info@utilitiesms.co.uk. We will tell you what the VAT position looks like before we talk about rates at all.