British Gas, OVO, EDF, EON, Octopus customers can keep house warm for 2p

UK households who face an Ofgem energy price cap hike in January have been told they can stay warm for 2p an hour. Which?, a consumer group, told British Gas, OVO, EDF, EON, Octopus customers how to stay toasty amid Christmas and the winter months.

Sam Morris, heating expert, Which?, said: "One of the cheapest ways we've found to keep yourself cosy is to wrap up in an electric blanket. Our tests have found they typically cost between 2p to 6p an hour to run on their highest setting – much cheaper than the average fan heater.

"This means that if you used an electric blanket for three hours a night, every night, for half the year, the cheapest-to-run options would only cost about £11 in total, versus £33 for the most expensive. You can reduce the cost further by setting the blanket to a lower setting, or turning it off sooner. The blanket will still remain warm for a couple of hours after turning the power off, so you feel the benefit without the cost ticking up.

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"Find out how much each of the electric blankets we tested cost to run, and which came top in our snugness tests. See our pick of the best electric blankets." The energy price cap covers 26 million households in England, Wales and Scotland and is set every three months, by Ofgem.

It fixes the maximum price that can be charged for each unit of energy on a standard - or default - tariff for a typical dual-fuel household which pays by direct debit. The cap fell in April and July 2024, but increased in October and will go up again in January.

Between 1 January and 31 March 2025, gas prices will be capped at 6.34p per kilowatt hour (kWh), and electricity at 24.86 per kWh, external .