Wholesale Electricity Prices Guide

UK Wholesale Electricity Prices 2024 

Wholesale electricity prices directly impact your bills and understanding them can help you avoid potential price increases. 

Renewal windows open up to 12 months before the contract end date. This offers a great window to monitor wholesale electricity rates and lock in a good deal when you find it. 

When you compare with Business Electricity Prices, our experts can advise you on all parts of the switching process.

Average Wholesale Electricity Price Trends 

The chart below represents the cost of wholesale electricity prices over the last couple of years and how they have reduced since the peak of the well-documented ‘energy crisis’. These are the unit prices that directly impact the way your supplier prices electricity and how the Ofgem energy price cap is set every quarter.

Source: Ofgem

How Does The Wholesale Electricity Market Work?

Generators of electricity compete by offering electricity to suppliers in the market. This creates price competition. In times of shortages, this drives the wholesale electricity prices up as witnessed in the above graph. Suppliers will then re-price the electricity and sell it to businesses and households.

National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) manages the wholesale electricity system.

Unpredictable weather in the UK puts larger demand on the National Grid. Colder spells lead to greater usage. 

Who Are The UK's Wholesale Electricity Generators? 

Here’s a breakdown of the UK electricity generators by market share. 

• EDF - 18.29%
• RWE - 16.57%
• SSE - 7.83%
• Ørsted - 6.26%
• EPH - 4.98% 
• VPI Generation Limited - 4.64%
• Uniper - 4.58% 
• Scottish Power Energy Networks - 4.07%
• Drax - 3.54% 
• Triton Power - 1.93% 

Can Businesses Buy Directly From The Wholesale Market?

Some large businesses with very high consumption levels purchase their electricity and gas on the wholesale market. All other businesses must choose a supplier to manage their usage.

How Do Wholesale Electricity Prices Impact My Renewal? 

We advise businesses to compare electricity every six months to a year. Suppliers regularly update prices and tariffs as wholesale electricity prices are highly volatile. This means that a better energy deal could always be available.

If you let your energy contract roll over and fail to renegotiate, prices can increase by as much as 120%.

The contract extension will happen automatically if you don’t renew correctly and for most businesses, this will increase rates.

You can access business electricity quotes from a wide range of suppliers in seconds by comparing prices.

We make finding the right electricity tariff for your business simple.

Wholesale Electricity Price Impact On Your Bill

Wholesale electricity prices make up 42% of a bill; multiple other costs are added to this before companies pay the final price.

• Wholesale electricity costs - 42%
• Distribution - 16%
• Government taxes - 24%
• Operating costs - 11%
• Supplier profits - 7%

UK Electricity Generation Mix 2024 vs 10 Years Ago

Data is based on UK electricity generation sourced from Ofgem based on a single quarter in 2014 compared to a single quarter in 2024.

What Is A Terawatt-Hour?

A terawatt-hour is a unit of measurement that is equal to 1,000 gigawatt-hours and 1 billion megawatt-hours.

How Much Do Wholesale Prices Impact Retail Price of Business Electricity?

Wholesale costs are a significant portion of the price per kWh of business electricity. Energy suppliers will price their electricity or gas prices to take into account the wholesale cost, as well as leave some room for margin. We’ve already seen the elements that make up business electricity charges.

Below is a chart of wholesale electricity prices compared with the UK-average price of a 2-year, 25,000kWh annual electricity usage contract to help you visualise how much the wholesale prices of electricity contributes to the final price electricity suppliers charge you.