Households have been warned to consider rocketing electricity prices when reaching for a fan as the year's first heatwave arrives. The cost of keeping cool has risen by more than 75% in the past two years as prices have soared during the energy crisis.
As the year's first heat health alert was issued ahead of a forecast 30C heatwave in England and Wales, uSwitch calculated the two million UK households with an air conditioning unit face a £71 million weekly energy bill. Britons are also set to spend nearly £3 million a week using desktop fans to keep cool, according to the comparison service.
It will cost the almost four million households that use desktop fans 7p a week to run one for an hour a day - and 67p during hotter weeks if they are used nine hours a day. In a typical week, the more than 840,000 households with built-in air conditioning units - if using them for the average four hours and 18 minutes during the day and four hours and 48 minutes at night during high temperatures - could see the cost soaring to £56.76 a week.
