Business Energy Market Update: October 2025

Day ahead prices for power closed the month as they started on around £80/MWh which set the tone for much of the price markers in September, with the market trading sideways for all contracts out from Winter '25.

In the short term, prices for delivery in October and November lost 3%, trading at £71.44 and £81.85 respectively. Gas also traded very flat with no real change in day ahead prices and contracts for delivery in Q4 of this year seeing a slight discount on the start of the month. Despite the losses the market for this period had started to turn bullish in the last week of September, so we may see some gains in October. Further out gas prices were stable, and the EU is currently on target to achieve its minimum gas storage level of 90 percent of capacity this year.

There has been much discussion in the industry this month around the introduction of two new charges set to have a significant impact on future energy bills. Firstly, there is the nuclear Regulated Asset Base or RAB for short. Passed into law back in 2022, the RAB allows for some of the financing of large scale nuclear energy infrastructure projects to be funded by consumers while the project is in the construction phase. RABs are nothing new (think Thames Tidesway Tunnel) and the idea behind them is to lower the end cost for consumers by reducing the amount of expensive financing a project requires. This new charge will be used to fund part of the construction of Sizewell C, after the recent cancellation of other potential nuclear power projects elsewhere in the UK due to the large financing costs.

While we still don’t know precise details of the impact this will have on energy bills, as the charge is likely to vary over time, at launch it will be set at 0.3455p/kWh for the supplier obligation levy and 0.00028p/kWh for the operational levy. This works out at £34.58 per year for a customer using 10,000 kWh.

Most suppliers will have little choice but to pass the RAB through to customers immediately, with some stating that even those on fixed contracts will see a price rise. Yorkshire Gas and Power has already written to its customers to advise them of just such a price increase.

The news will come as yet another disappointment to UK consumers who have been promised lower bills by successive governments. The price for power generated at Hinckley C, funded under a Contracts for Difference scheme, is now likely to be somewhere near £150/MWh, far in excess of current price trends. And while it will be many years before we will know for sure, we can only hope this new financing model will see power produced far more cheaply on the Suffolk Coast.

In addition to the above, consumers are set to be hit with dramatically increased transmission (TNUoS) charges from April 2026. Our net zero aspirations have seen an explosion in wind and other forms of renewable power, but unlike traditional power stations which are built close to population centres or other end users, these generation assets are often in more remote areas and as such our current energy network simply wasn’t designed with this in mind and is in urgent need of upgrading.

The increases are simply staggering. At the beginning of September, NESO - the National Energy System Operator - stated the TNUoS Demand Residual charge, which is currently at £3.8bn for 2025/26, would increase to £7.5bn in 2026/27. In the same update NESO also announced the TNUoS Demand Residual (TDR) tariff, currently equivalent to £15.7/MWh or 1.5 pence per kWh on bills in 2025/26, will rise to £30.5/MWh in 2026/27.

Consumers should note, further rises are expected over the coming years and the unexpected size of the increases may well lead to some suppliers passing these costs through to customers in a similar fashion to the RAB charge. NESO will provide an update in November before confirming the final tariffs in January next year.

Halloween is just around the corner and with all these potential increases in cost, now is the time to take a look at your phantom load or as some like to call it, vampire energy. Phantom load is exactly that; energy used in the background where you can’t always see it, sucking away at your electricity bill and potentially adding hundreds of pounds annually.

My top tips for busting the ghosts are:

• always switch off computers, printers, monitors and TVs at the end of the day and use off timers etc where appliances have them. Y

• You should also take a look round your premises and identify any old equipment still plugged-in that might have been replaced by a newer model (or is simply redundant) and get rid of it, either by recycling or even a used marketplace etc.

Phantom load is about switching things off. Timers, sleep modes and smart plugs are your friend, so use them where you can and make sure you’re not an energy pumpkin this Halloween!

As always the Clear Utility team are on hand to assist with all your utility enquiries, so please give us a call on 01327601122