Smokeless fuel, gas and firewood: what a kilowatt-hour costs
On 18 October 2026 the cheapest smokeless fuel on the board cost less, per kilowatt-hour of energy in the fuel, than the average gas unit rate, and less than kiln-dried logs. That compares the energy you buy.
Every fuel figure below is the pack price only. Delivery is excluded. The prices were checked on 18 Oct 2026 and they will move. The live board is the current order.
The prices on the day
- Cheapest pallet: Supertherm, 50 × 20 kg bags, from Bulk Coal, £550, £0.062/kWh (6.2p). Delivery is listed as free to most mainland England, Scotland and Wales postcodes.
- Cheapest bag: Supertherm, 50 kg sack, from Byrn Coal Company, £34, £0.076/kWh (about 7.6p). Delivery is listed as free, with a £60 minimum order.
- Gas: the Ofgem price cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026. The average Direct Debit gas unit rate is 7.97p per kWh, including 5% VAT. The standing charge is separate, 29.68p a day on that same average. Regional rates differ. The cap for a typical dual-fuel Direct Debit home is £1,723 a year.
- Kiln-dried logs: the Nottingham Energy Partnership table for October 2026. 37.26p per kg, net calorific value 4.09 kWh/kg, which is about 9.1p per kWh of energy in the wood (37.26 ÷ 4.09). They then assume an appliance at 85% and put useful heat at 10.73p per kWh. The price is an average of Fuel Sell, Homefire’s kiln-dried hardwood bulk bag, and Wirksworth Logs.
Cheaper than gas, for some packs
The 6.2p pallet and the 7.6p sack are below the 7.97p gas unit rate. Plenty of smaller bags are above it. The same check showed Wickes Homefire Brazier at £0.109/kWh for a 10 kg bag, with delivery listed separately at £5, classic Homefire at £0.121/kWh for a 25 kg bag, and B&Q Homefire Brazier at £0.131/kWh for two 10 kg bags.
Ofgem’s 7.97p is the unit rate. It leaves the standing charge out. The Partnership’s own gas figure for October, 8.81p per kWh, rolls standing charges in, so the two gas numbers answer different questions. This article uses the Ofgem unit rate, and keeps the standing charge visible beside it.
What reaches the room
The board’s £/kWh is the energy in the fuel, using the gross calorific value. It is not the heat that arrives in the room. The Partnership assumes a gas boiler at about 90% and a smokeless appliance at about 75%. On those assumptions, useful heat from gas is about 8.9p per kWh (7.97 ÷ 0.90), before the standing charge. The same arithmetic on the cheap pallet is about 8.3p (6.2 ÷ 0.75), and on the cheap sack about 10.1p (7.6 ÷ 0.75).
A stove burning that pallet can therefore sit close to a gas boiler on the cost of useful heat. The cheap sack comes out a little dearer than gas once the stove’s efficiency is counted.
If the gas stays connected for hot water, cooking or the rest of the heating, the standing charge is still due. On the Ofgem average that is 29.68p a day through this cap period.
Cheaper than kiln-dried logs, for the same cheap packs
The cheap pallet and the cheap sack both undercut the kiln-dried figure of about 9.1p per kWh of energy in the wood. The measures are close, and they are not identical. The board uses gross calorific value. The log figure uses net calorific value, which leaves out heat carried away by water vapour. The gap between 6.2p and 9.1p is wide enough that the order holds.
On useful heat, the Partnership’s 10.73p for logs at 85% still sits above the cheap pallet at about 8.3p. The cheap sack, at about 10.1p on the 75% assumption, is a little under the logs, and that comparison leans on the two efficiency figures. The small shop bags, at 10.9p, 12.1p and 13.1p before any allowance for the appliance, are the dearer buy.
A net of logs from a filling station is a different product from the bulk kiln-dried price in that table, and it is usually dearer. There is no single national price for it, so it is not given a pence-per-kWh here.
The Partnership also publishes an average smokeless price of 70.51p per kg, which they turn into 14.03p of useful heat at 75%, using a net calorific value of 6.70 kWh/kg. That is a different basket of merchants and a different energy measure from this board. The cheapest offers we checked are well below it. For a named bag, use the board.
Where this leaves a household
These fuels are a fair cost comparison when you want a fire, or a stove that is allowed to burn them, and you buy one of the cheaper packs. Electricity on the same Ofgem average is 26.32p per kWh, so a cheap solid-fuel stove is also far below a plug-in heater on the unit rate. Electricity has its own standing charge, 54.83p a day on that average, and there is no VAT on domestic electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
The next decision is the size of the order, then how to light it. See which pack size to buy and how to light smokeless fuel.