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- An unusually cold June proved too much for many, who turned on the heating.
- Many households also fired up their wood stoves and sales of barbecue charcoal plummeted.
Some families apparently gave in to an unusually cold June and turned up their central heating, figures reveal, adding an extra £6m to energy bills.
Sales of barbecue charcoal have also been affected as Britons have decided that indoor cooking is their best option amid a mostly cold and wet June and July.
June was between two and five degrees cooler than average, with heavy rain in many regions turning the start of summer into a chilly day.
Cold snap: The unusually cold month of June caused many households to turn up the thermostat
This was due to northerly winds bringing cold Arctic air across the UK in a cool start to the meteorological summer.
Households used more gas than usual in June, probably because they turned up their heating, according to figures from National Gas, which runs the gas network.
Households and some small businesses used a total of 14,612 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of gas in June 2024, up 20 percent from 12,174 GWh in the same month in 2023.
If the extra 2.438 GWh of gas consumed in June was only used to heat homes, it means Britons used around 102 million extra hours of central heating, assuming each home has a modest 24kW gas boiler.
This would have added an extra £6.1m to the country’s energy bills, assuming these homes are capped by Ofgem’s energy price cap, where the average unit rate for gas was 6.04p per kWh in June.
While there is no way of knowing exactly what the extra gas was used for, using central heating seems a safe bet.
A National Gas spokesman said: “While we can infer that this increase was due to the colder weather, we cannot determine consumer behaviour based on this data alone.”
Although users of open fireplaces and wood stoves did not appear to buy more fuel during June, that did not mean they ran out of fuel.
Homefire, the UK’s largest supplier of logs and smokeless fuel, said it had not seen a rise in sales but stove owners may have been burning solid fuel left over from winter.
A Homefire spokesperson said: ‘While it might seem intuitive to expect increased orders for wood and smokeless fuel due to the unusually cold weather in June and July, our sales data tells a more complex story.
‘A number of factors, including the impact of the smoldering coal ban in certain regions of the UK last year, have influenced our sales patterns.
‘As a result, Homefire has not seen a significant increase in sales of these products.
‘However, customer feedback over the past two months indicates that many people are using solid fuel more frequently due to the colder weather, suggesting a change in consumer behaviour.’
However, Homefire recorded much lower sales of barbecue charcoal as Britons switched from outdoor grilling to indoor cooking.
The Homefire spokesperson added: ‘In addition, we have seen a significant variation in coal sales between 2023 and 2024, with a notable reduction in usage.
This is probably due to the cold, rainy weather, which has led to fewer barbecues.
‘For example, our data shows a reduction in coal sales volume of between 34 and 51 percent depending on the month, with an overall decline of 42.6 percent from April to June.’
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