Energy costs & Aga cookers, updated figures and analysis for 2024

It's OFGEM energy price cap announcement day again (whoop!), as is now traditional here is my analysis of what this means for Aga cooker owners. It's a mixed bag this time!

Firstly, great news! The cost of energy is to fall by approx 7% from 1 July for 3 months. For this period electricity rates per kWh will fall to 22.36p and gas falls to 5.48p/kWH.

The daily standing charges remain at a relatively high level of 60.12p per day and 31.41p p/day for electricity and gas respectively. This is also good news. As higher users of energy Aga owners benefit much more from rate cuts than standing charge cuts!

The bad news is that it looks like this will be the last price cut for awhile. Cornwall Insight, who have a great track record, are predicting unit rates rising 12% in the run up to winter from 1st October. Electricity will be back up to 25.77p/kWh and gas up to 6.29p/kWh. The standing charges will also rise slightly to 61p per day and 33p per day for electricity and gas respectively. They further predict these rates being maintained right through to April 2025. 

It is clear that we are not going back to low cost energy any time soon sadly even if the costs are lower than a couple of years ago. If you are looking for a new energy deal then the current fixed rates on offer look a good bet, see Martin Lewis' Cheap Energy Club for more information. 

There are lots of reform suggestions swirling around govt circles at the moment, the key priority is cheaper electricity as the drive to 'electrify everything' continues. Realistically though the upcoming election means any action is a long way off. The key consideration for Aga owners continues to be energy efficiency.

I've updated my running cost calculations today from 1st July.

There are lots of links to sources in the text below if you'd like some further reading!

How have we calculated the figures for fuel cost per kWH?

• The blended figures from July 2024 in the table below for gas and electric are created by averaging the actual per kWh figure for Q3 2024 with the predictions for Q3 2024 & Q1 2025 from Cornwall Insight.

• Domestic heating oil was down 9.55% 1 January to 31 April 2024 vs 2023, we've used the same figure to forecast an average for heating oil for 2024 vs the 2023 average. Oil prices are MUCH more volatile than gas or electric! You will get better rates buying in the summer if you can, the figure below is an average for the whole year though.  

How does this translate to the running costs of the cooker in your kitchen? For fuel used in oil and gas cookers we use the factory figures plus a small supplement for age related insulation breakdown. The single element figures are a blended estimate based on hundreds of conversations with owners of these cookers. They tend to be very keen to convert, single element electric cookers are the most expensive to run, multi element are the cheapest. 

"No wonder converted cookers are cheaper to run; they're off all the time!"

When I wrote an update like this is February the comment above made me chuckle, but it's not true! The kWh figures I use for multi element electric systems are realistic figures based on my own use, I use it for heat a lot. In the winter I use my cooker in a very traditional way, its on all day every day cooking and drying washing but turned off overnight if the weather is mild. It will still dry a load of washing overnight and keeps the kitchen warm as it cools. In the summer I am more flexible as the kitchen gets hotter and the BBQ comes out of the garage! 

How do we calculate our servicing & repair estimates?

• Oil cookers tend to cost more to keep going, especially as they are getting older these days. We have 25 years of data here showing 3 visits a year on average for servicing and repairs. In 2024 prices (£140 + VAT per visit) this is around £504 annually but we've gone with 2 visits for our chart above at £336 in case its an outlier. If you have more data from your cooker let me know!
• Gas cookers are more reliable (even if gas valve availability is currently poor) so we've allowed for one service a year (the minimum by law) plus a new thermocouple annually. 

Multi element cost the least to run but the biggest cost with fossil cookers is in carbon emissions and local air quality.

Even poorly regarded single element electric cookers are super green compared to oil and gas. This is because the UK electricity grid keeps getting greener. In 1995 our electricity production produced 230g carbon per kWh on average, now its just 130g, thats a 44% reduction! Over the next 11 years that number should fall to 0 grams. Net zero! Net zero is not about reducing energy consumption, its about using lots of energy that has zero effect on the planet. A low energy life is not fun or comfortable, we need lots of (hopefully!) cheap sustainable energy to live lives fall of warmth, light and joy. 

Meanwhile fossil cookers carry on as they are. A wine bottle of heating oil? A 4 oven oil Aga range cooker is heated by setting fire to 80 of these every week.

It takes 4618 mature trees to absorb the carbon produced.

As little at 5% of the energy created is used for cooking. Some heats your home but most disappears up the flue with the carbon monoxide and other harmful gases.

With servicing it costs around £55 a week to run, thats IF it doesn't go wrong and need repair. 

This stuff is in your house. Here is the BP safety data sheet. It's 14 pages long. Kerosene is a category 2 carcinogen and category 1 aspiration hazard among many other things.

Diesel cars are terribly polluting, diesel Aga cookers have no particulate filters etc to mitigate and are even worse!

A multi element electric cooker? Just over half a ton of carbon produced! Thats a 93% reduction in carbon emissions vs oil. Local air pollution, particulate matter, is reduced by 100% of course. There are NONE from an electric cooker.