Our second full year in a zero bill homes

In mid winter, our home in Norfolk was costing more than £500 a month to heat. In our new home here in Suffolk, our 2025 electricty bill, which includes heating and charging our electric car, totals £2,154. Our solar panels exported electricity for much of the year, for which we were paid £816, bringing our net cost down to £1,338.

We drove around 8,000 miles over the past year, which if we were buying petrol, would have cost us around £1,100. If that amount is subtracted from our net electricity cost, then heating and powering our home cost us just £238 for the year. That is impressive and clearly a goal that many should be aiming to achieve.

But of course it is easy to build a new house with the right anmount of insulation, efficient air source heat pump and lots of solar panels and batteries to deliver this level of performance. What about all the rest?

For commercial housebuilders, the additional cost of achieving an EPC A rating is often greater than the premium they feel that housebuyers will pay, so most new homes are a little less efficient and sadly, even today, many are fitted with gas fired central heating. Add the costly challenge of improving the performance of existing housing stock and the Government’s drive for zero bill homes appears an impossible dream.