Care home energy costs per bed
“What should we be spending per bed?” is the question operators ask before any solar conversation, and it is the right question — a per-bed figure is the only way to compare a 28-bed residential home with a 90-bed nursing home, or your own site against the rest of a group. This page gives the sector-typical ranges, explains why the spread between settings is so wide, and shows you how to calculate your own number rather than relying on a benchmark. Every figure here is labelled either statutory, sector-typical or modelled, so you can see which is which.
£480–£1,300
Electricity per bed / year
Modelled from sector bands
24/7
Why care differs
No overnight shutdown
12 months
Data you need
Half-hourly, not annual totals
0% VAT
To 31 Mar 2027
Residential accommodation
The sector bands, and the per-bed figures derived from them
Annual electricity spend across UK care settings falls into three broad bands. These are sector-typical ranges used throughout this site, not a survey result:
- Small residential home: roughly £14,400–£27,600 a year
- Medium home: up to around £71,400 a year
- Large nursing or dementia setting: £156,000 a year and above
Divide those by typical bed counts for each band and you get a modelled range of about £480 to £1,300 per bed per year. The low end is a small residential home with a low-dependency resident group and gas heating; the high end is a nursing or dementia setting with electric hot water, on-site laundry running most of the day and clinical equipment in continuous use.
That is a spread of more than two and a half times, which is why a single sector average is close to useless for planning. What the range is good for is a sanity check: if your own figure sits well above £1,300 per bed, something specific is driving it — electric heating, an ageing laundry, a plant room running continuously — and that is worth investigating before you consider generation.
Claims table — figures on this page
| Figure | Value | Basis | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual electricity spend, small residential home | £14,400–£27,600 | Sector band used across this site | Sector-typical range |
| Annual electricity spend, medium home | up to £71,400 | Sector band | Sector-typical range |
| Annual electricity spend, large nursing/dementia | £156,000+ | Sector band | Sector-typical range |
| Per-bed annual electricity cost | £480–£1,300 | Derived from the bands above across typical bed counts | Modelled |
| VAT on solar + battery, residential accommodation | 0% to 31 Mar 2027 | VAT Notice 708/6 | Statutory |
| Generating plant excluded from rateable value | to 2035 | Non-Domestic Rating (England) | Statutory |
Read the type column. The per-bed figures are modelled from sector bands, not measured from your building. Only your own half-hourly data gives you your number.
Why nursing and dementia settings cost so much more
The difference is not floor area. It is the shape of the demand.
A nursing setting runs profiling beds and mattress pumps continuously, ceiling and mobile hoists through the day, clinical equipment, a nurse-call system that never sleeps, and an on-site laundry handling a far heavier load than a residential home because of continence and infection-control requirements. Hot water demand is both higher and less predictable. None of that switches off at six in the evening.
A dementia setting adds its own pattern: lighting regimes designed to support circadian rhythm rather than minimise consumption, higher ambient temperatures maintained for resident comfort, door-control and assistive technology, and more staff presence overnight. Energy efficiency and dementia-appropriate care sometimes point in opposite directions, and care wins — correctly.
A residential or sheltered scheme, by contrast, has a meaningful overnight trough, lower laundry throughput and, in many sheltered schemes, individually metered flats so the communal supply carries only lighting, a lift and shared hot water. That last point matters enormously for solar, because it is the communal supply an array connects to. Our benefits breakdown explains where that leaves each setting type.
How to work out your own figure properly
Four steps, and none of them require a consultant:
- Get twelve months of half-hourly data from your supplier for each MPAN. It is your data and they must provide it. Annual totals are not enough — two homes with identical annual consumption can have completely different daytime profiles, and only one of them suits solar.
- Separate electricity from heat. If heating is gas or oil, exclude it. Solar addresses electricity. Mixing the two produces a per-bed figure that cannot be compared with anything.
- Divide by occupied beds, not registered beds. A 60-bed home running at 82% occupancy is a 49-bed home for this purpose. Using registered capacity flatters the number and breaks the comparison.
- Identify your daytime share. Add consumption between roughly 09:00 and 16:00 and express it as a percentage of the total. That single number predicts solar viability better than anything else on this page — it is what determines how much generation you use rather than export.
Do that and you have something a benchmark cannot give you: your own demand shape. For what a system then costs against that profile, see our care home solar cost page.
What the per-bed figure does not tell you
Three honest limitations, because a benchmark used carelessly leads to bad decisions.
It hides the daily shape. Two homes at £900 per bed can have entirely different profiles — one with a broad daytime plateau that suits an array well, one dominated by an evening and overnight load that does not. The per-bed figure is identical; the solar case is not.
It hides tariff structure. A home on an old fixed contract and one on a current variable rate can show very different spend on identical consumption. When you compare sites in a group, compare kWh per occupied bed as well as pounds, or you will mistake a procurement difference for an efficiency one.
It says nothing about what you can actually change. A high figure driven by clinical need is not waste. A high figure driven by an uninsulated calorifier, a laundry running short cycles or lighting left on in unoccupied areas is. Solar reduces the cost of the electricity you use; it does not reduce the amount you use. Both are worth doing, in that order — measure, reduce what is genuinely reducible, then generate against what remains.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does a care home spend on electricity per bed?
Sector-typical ranges work out at roughly £480 to £1,300 per bed per year for electricity. That is a modelled figure derived from the sector spend bands (small residential £14,400–£27,600; medium up to £71,400; large nursing or dementia £156,000+) across typical bed counts — not a survey result. The low end is a small residential home with gas heating and a low-dependency resident group; the high end is a nursing or dementia setting with electric hot water, heavy laundry and continuous clinical equipment. Your own figure needs twelve months of half-hourly data.
Why is our per-bed cost higher than another home in the group?
Usually setting type first, then tariff, then plant. A nursing or dementia unit legitimately costs far more per bed than a residential home because the demand never stops. After that, two homes with identical consumption can show very different spend simply because one sits on an older contract. Compare kWh per occupied bed as well as pounds before concluding one home is inefficient — and check occupancy, since dividing by registered rather than occupied beds distorts the comparison.
Is the per-bed benchmark enough to decide on solar?
No. It tells you the scale of the prize, not whether you can capture it. The number that decides solar viability is your daytime share — consumption between roughly 09:00 and 16:00 as a percentage of the total — because that determines how much generation you consume on site rather than export. Two homes with the same per-bed cost can have very different daytime shares and therefore very different answers. Ask any supplier for the modelled self-consumption percentage and the meter data behind it.
Should we include gas in the per-bed figure?
Not for a solar assessment. Keep electricity separate, because that is what an array offsets. A combined energy cost per bed is a useful board-level number but it cannot be used to size or justify a solar system, and mixing the two is a common way proposals end up oversized. If heating is your dominant cost, that is a separate conversation about heat, not generation.
Does a higher per-bed cost mean we are being wasteful?
Not necessarily, and treating it that way causes friction with clinical colleagues. Much of the difference between settings is driven by resident need — hoists, profiling beds, continence laundry, dementia-appropriate lighting and temperature. That is care being delivered, not waste. Genuine waste tends to look like specific, findable things: an uninsulated calorifier, short laundry cycles, lighting in unoccupied areas, plant running outside occupied hours. Measure first, separate need from waste, then consider generation against what remains.