The January price cap is due by 25 November. Get the throw out.

Links to Amazon are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. What that means.

What we know

• The current cap, for October to December, is £1,723 a year for a typical household on dual fuel paying by direct debit.
• Cornwall Insight, the forecaster most often quoted, put January at about £1,999. That’s roughly 16% up. It was based on wholesale prices in late September.
• Uswitch reported on 6 November that the average of the predictions from British Gas, EDF and E.ON is a rise of 28%.
• The reason given by all of them is the same: wholesale gas and electricity prices pushed up by the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

So the honest summary is “up, by somewhere between a sixth and a quarter”. I’ll update this page when Ofgem publishes the real number.

Remember the cap is a limit on unit rates and standing charges, not on your bill. Use more, pay more. The £1,723 is an illustration for a typical home.

What to do before January

None of this is financial advice, and whether to fix your tariff is a question for a comparison site and your own arithmetic. These are the things that cost little and work whatever the number turns out to be.

1. Heat the person, not the house. A heated throw costs around 3p an hour to run at today’s rates. Even if electricity went up by the full 28%, that’s about 4p. Central heating for the same hour costs many times that.
2. Stop the draughts. Tape round a leaky door or window pays for itself in a cold fortnight.
3. Turn the thermostat down one degree and see if anyone notices. In my house nobody did for nine days, and then only because I told them.
4. Give a meter reading on 31 December if you don’t have a smart meter, so your old-rate units aren’t billed at the new rate.
5. Check whether you’re owed help. The Priority Services Register is free, and it costs nothing to ask your supplier what support it offers.

The warmth shelf

Also worth a few pounds: draught excluder tape and a pair of thermal socks. More on the warmth page.

Sources: Uswitch, January 2027 price cap predictions, updated 6 November 2026; Cornwall Insight price cap forecasts, updated 14 October 2026; Ofgem, energy price cap.