← Energy · Heat networks

477,000 households buy heat from a monopoly with no price cap.

If your flat is heated by a communal boiler or a district heating scheme, you are not on the energy market. You cannot switch, the price cap does not reach you, and until 27 January 2026 nobody regulated your supplier at all. That changed. Here is exactly what you got, what you still have not got, and what to do when a bill is wrong.

Nobody publishes what heat networks charge. There is no official comparison of heat unit rates against gas or electricity. Ofgem's own pricing consultation says the data does not exist in a usable form. Any site showing you a pence per kilowatt hour comparison for heat networks is not quoting a primary source, and neither are we.

Why this is different from every other energy page

You cannot switch

Your heat comes from one network and there is no alternative supplier. Since 27 January 2026 your bill has to say so in terms.

There is no price cap

The Ofgem energy price cap does not apply to heat. Ofgem says so plainly. Government decided against direct price regulation and chose a conduct rule instead.

There was no regulator until January 2026

Until 27 January 2026 heat networks had no economic regulator at all. Gas and electricity have had one since 1986 and 1989.

Nobody publishes what heat actually costs

There is no official comparison of heat network unit rates against gas or electricity. Ofgem's own consultation says the data does not exist in usable form.

About 12,000 networks, roughly 477,000 households and 1,100,000 people, about 3 per cent of all the heat used in the UK. Those counts come from December 2022 returns, published August 2025 and the department says its own register is incomplete, so the real figure is probably higher. The first proper count arrives when registration closes on 26 January 2027.

What you are protected by now

8 rules, all in force. This is the whole of it, not a selection.

Standards of conduct

in force from 27 January 2026

Five binding principles. Your supplier must behave fairly, honestly and transparently, give you complete and accessible information, run customer service processes that work, identify and support people in vulnerable situations, and engage with you actively.

A written contract

in force from 27 January 2026

You must be given a written heat supply contract setting out the terms, the billing arrangements, who is responsible for what, the complaints procedure and how to escalate a dispute.

A bill you can check

in force from 27 January 2026

On a metered network you must get an annual bill based on what you actually used, showing this year against last year, the charges itemised, how to pay, who to complain to, the Energy Ombudsman's details, and a notice that your supply is a monopoly.

A twelve month back billing limit

in force from 27 January 2026

You cannot be billed for heat you used more than twelve months ago if the supplier had not billed you for it. This is the single most useful rule here, because a surprise catch up bill is the commonest complaint on heat networks. Ofgem carves out charges that fall under service charge rules in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which will catch many leaseholders.

A complaints route that ends somewhere

in force from 27 January 2026

Your supplier must run a complaints procedure with one point of contact and tell you how to escalate. Membership of the Energy Ombudsman is now compulsory. You can go to the Ombudsman after eight weeks, or straight away with a deadlock letter.

Vulnerability support and a priority register

in force from 27 January 2026

Your supplier must identify occupants in vulnerable situations, offer a place on a priority services register and provide other ways of communicating.

Fair pricing

in force from 27 January 2026

Prices must be fair and not disproportionate, tested against cost reflectivity, cost efficiency, reasonable returns, the effect on consumers, regulatory control and price transparency. This is a rule about conduct. It is not a cap and it sets no maximum price.

Penalties and redress orders

in force from 20 February 2026

Ofgem can fine a supplier for breaking a condition and can make a consumer redress order where customers have lost out. That is an enforcement tool against a supplier, not something you apply for.

What you are not protected by

The part everybody assumes and nobody checks.

The energy price cap

No

Ofgem states that you are not protected by the price cap if you get your heat from a heat network. There is no ceiling on what you can be charged for heat.

Switching

No

There is no alternative supplier to move to. This is a monopoly by design.

Guaranteed standards compensation

Not yet

The automatic payments gas and electricity customers get do not exist for heat networks.

The Warm Home Discount

On your electricity, not your heat

The Warm Home Discount is £150 off an electricity bill. Most heat network households buy electricity separately from an ordinary supplier and can qualify on the same terms as anybody else. But it comes off the electricity bill and does nothing about the heat charges, which are the ones causing the trouble. If you have no electricity account of your own because power comes through a landlord or site owner, the core scheme does not reach you.

If your bill is wrong, in order

Every step here is free and none of it needs a solicitor.

  1. Complain to your heat supplier first. Since 27 January 2026 every regulated supplier has to have a complaints procedure with one point of contact, has to acknowledge and investigate, and has to tell you how to escalate. The details must be on your bill.
  2. Check the twelve month rule. If they are billing you for heat used more than twelve months ago that they had not billed before, they are not allowed to, unless the charge falls under service charge rules.
  3. Check the bill against what a bill now has to contain. On a metered network it must be based on actual use and show this year against last year. If it does not, that is a breach of the rules, not a quirk.
  4. Get free advice while the complaint runs. Citizens Advice on 0800 223 1133 in England and Wales, or energyadvice.scot on 0808 196 8660 in Scotland. Both have had a formal role for heat network customers since 1 April 2025.
  5. Go to the Energy Ombudsman after eight weeks, or straight away if you get a deadlock letter. Membership is compulsory for regulated networks and the service is free.
  6. Tell Ofgem about the supplier's conduct. Ofgem does not settle individual disputes, but it enforces the rules, and a pattern is what makes it act.
  7. If your heat is billed through a service charge, the First-tier Tribunal route on service charge reasonableness may also be open to you. That sits outside the Ofgem rules and is a separate argument you can run alongside.

Heat Trust, and why it may not cover you

An independent non-profit scheme with its own standards of conduct and its own complaints process. It is voluntary, so whether it covers you depends entirely on whether your supplier chose to join. Ofgem's rules cover every regulated network whether the operator wanted them or not. Heat Trust says it will keep running until Ofgem's equivalent rules are in force and enforced, which it expects in early 2027.

Heat Trust →

What is still coming

4 things. Two are dated, two are not, and we say which is which.

Every network registered with Ofgem

coming, confirmed from 26 January 2027

Every existing operator and supplier has to give Ofgem its ownership, financial resilience and consumer protection arrangements by this date. Until then nobody knows how many networks there really are.

Price oversight and investigations

coming, not firmly dated from 1 January 2027

The department's response puts pricing oversight from January 2027, and Ofgem said price investigations would begin January 2027 at the earliest. Ofgem has said its focus at the start is helping the sector comply rather than enforcing, so do not expect fast price intervention.

Automatic compensation for poor service

not proposed with a date

Gas and electricity customers get fixed automatic payments when a supplier misses a standard. Heat network customers do not. Ofgem has said only that it may explore this in a future consultation. No amounts and no date exist.

Technical standards

coming, not dated

The Heat Network Technical Assurance Scheme will set standards for how networks are designed, built and run. Government says a planned launch in 2027, phased in. No commencement date is published.

Where this comes from, and where it could be wrong

The only price figure that exists£600

Self reported median annual cost of heating and hot water only, not a whole energy bill. Against £960 for households not on a heat network. Surveyed surveyed March to July 2022, published August 2023.

Left out on purpose6 points

Things we went looking for and could not stand up against a primary source. They are listed below rather than filled in, which is the part most pages on this subject leave out.

Where it appliesGreat Britain

Great Britain. Northern Ireland has no equivalent framework and we could not find one.

That £600 figure, honestly

It is the only official number on what heat network customers pay, and it is weak. Read it with all three of these in mind:

  • About a quarter of the people asked could not give a figure at all.
  • The fieldwork finished in July 2022, before the price rises of that autumn and winter. It is four years old and it is the most recent official figure there is.
  • It measures heating and hot water only, so it is not comparable with a headline dual fuel bill.

We publish it because it is the only primary source there is, and we say all this because a four year old self reported survey figure presented as a current price would be worse than no figure.

What we could not verify

  • Whether heat network customers qualify for the Warm Home Discount is not stated anywhere official. The eligibility statement for 2026/27 does not mention heat networks, district heating or communal heating at all. What is written above is our reading of the published conditions, that you must be named on an electricity bill with a participating supplier, and not a quotation from the scheme.
  • There is no official comparison of heat network unit rates against gas or electricity. Ofgem's own fair pricing consultation says the data does not exist in usable form and falls back on a 2018 competition study which it says may have significantly changed. Anyone showing you a pence per kilowatt hour comparison for heat networks is not quoting a primary source.
  • A striking percentage rise in heat network bills has been quoted in a ministerial press release with no dataset, method or year attached to it. We have not repeated the number, here or anywhere, because a figure with nothing behind it is not a figure.
  • The exact date price investigations begin. Ofgem's consultation said January 2027 at the earliest and its final guidance gives no start date.
  • The current number of heat networks. The figure of about 12,000 rests on December 2022 returns which the department itself says are incomplete.
  • The position in Northern Ireland. The Great Britain framework does not reach it and we found no equivalent.

Sources

30 price changes logged. Every one had a date you could have known in advance.

Tell us which bills you care about and we will email you when one of them changes, with the figure, the date it starts and a link to the regulator that set it. Free, no account, one click to stop.

Email alerts are not running yet. We would rather say that than take your address and send you nothing. Until they are, the change log carries every dated change the day we find it, and you can bookmark it or follow it in a reader.

Everything, freeAll ten trackers, no account
Ranked on costNever on what a link pays us
SourcedEvery figure links to the body that set it