Price of 1 mWh Electricity

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James Longley

Managing Director

min read

When you first begin looking deeper into how much you are spending on business electricity, it is likely to cause some confusion. You will be bombarded with unfamiliar terms, the type you long forgot about since your days sat in science class at school.

One such term is mWh, which stands for megawatt-hour.

The good news is you do not require a degree in physics to understand mWh. It is straightforward when you explore it with the right approach. This guide will detail mWh, how it functions, and how much it costs.

What is a megawatt?

Before getting into the megawatt itself, it is important to understand the function of a watt. Simply put, the measurement of electricity is done in units of power, and these are known as watts. This is the scientific calculation:

P (watts) = Voltage (V) x Current (I)

This is a measurement of the amount of electrical energy featured in a circuit and the amount of electrical work which can be done by said circuit. A watt on its own, however, is not worth much. As you will know, lightbulbs – one of the least intensive electrical devices – use everything from 40 to 100 watts as standard.

This is why you will commonly see watts packaged as a kilowatt (kW) and megawatt (mW). A kilowatt is 1,000 watts, while a megawatt is 1,000,000 million watts – or 1,000 kilowatts.

The reason why the world needs mW and kW is simple: electricity is a commodity. Due to the way businesses and households consume electricity, suppliers deemed it necessary to work out the exact total of electrical energy used over a set period. This is why the megawatt-hour (MWh) exists.

What is a megawatt-hour?

The clue is in the name. As established already, a ‘megawatt’ is the equivalent of one million watts of electricity. The ‘hour’ is used to measure the electricity usage for, you guessed it, an hour.

Keep in mind the megawatt-hour power does not have to be used all within a single hour. For instance, it could be spread out across two hours if there is continual power usage at a rate of 0.5 megawatts (aka 500 kW). On the other end of the scale, it is possible to use two megawatts of power in the space of 30 minutes.

How much is one megawatt of electricity?

According to statistics, the average UK household utilises approximately 3,700 kilowatts each year. As a result, it should not come as a surprise that megawatts are usually restricted to certain organisations and industries.

For instance, large-scale power stations are typically used on the megawatt scale. It is an incredibly large amount of energy, after all. Just how large? Well, it is said that an mWh can provide about 330 homes with electricity for one hour.

What is the price of one megawatt?

Now it is time to answer this guide’s main question: How much does one megawatt cost? Sadly, there is no clear answer to give. Due to the unpredictable nature of the energy industry, prices change on a day-to-day basis. They sometimes even fluctuate by the hour. In general, you could be spending between £35 and £65 per mWh.

The market shifts due to the level of demand for energy from both businesses and domestic households. This can change because of the weather. During hot summer months, for example, there is a natural increase in air conditioning systems’ use to stay cool. This is a similar story during the winter, as there is an upsurge in the use of heating solutions to battle cold spells. Appliances also continue to incorporate high kWh usage, which further contributes to the demand for energy.

While this guide could list the current mWh price, this is likely to be outdated after the first day of being published. A solution to this issue is by taking a look at the recent history of mWh and its general cost.

Analysing the past market

When it comes to the mWh price, you only have to analyse 2016 to see the unpredictable nature of wholesale electricity and its cost. While the price generally stuck to £34-38 per mWh for most of the year, this shot up significantly to £56 during the October quarter.

Yet as the £65 October 2018 quarter demonstrates, the price can continue to jump significantly. However, this does not even come close to the 2008 peak that hit £90/mWh.

In the last couple of years, and despite how the industry can fluctuate, the pricing has generally been favourable for companies. From April 2019 to January 2020, the average wholesale price did not go above £42. Even though the price has gone above the £50 mark in 2021, it is not displaying any signs of going anywhere close to that record £90/mWh from 13 years ago.

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