Royals spend £2.5 million a year on energy bills

The royal family is estimated to be spending £2.5 million per year on their energy bills at their ten best-known palaces and castles, according to Uswitch.com, the comparison and switching service.

Buckingham Palace — with its 775 rooms, 77,000 square metres of floor space and swimming pool — is estimated to be the most expensive royal residence in the UK, costing £1.1 million a year to power. Windsor Castle has the next highest energy bill of £393,523, with Kensington Palace third with £260,448.

The Queen has taken efforts to make her palaces more sustainable, with a network of 60 smart meters monitoring usage across the royal estate and more efficient LED lighting being trialled.

At Windsor Castle, the world’s oldest occupied castle, electricity bills are reduced by 40% thanks to a hydroelectric power scheme on the River Thames that saves the Queen about £262,349 a year, reducing them from a potential bill of £655,872.

Table – Estimated Royal energy bills of the ten best-known residences

Source: Uswitch.com.

The Queen is due to make Balmoral Castle more sustainable, after winning permission for a 2MW hydroelectric turbine to generate £650,000 worth of power, with any surplus energy sent to the National Grid. Balmoral already has one hydroelectric turbine, providing 100kW of power. 

Prince Charles, who has campaigned on environmental issues for decades, has installed solar panels at Clarence House, uses low-energy light bulbs and has improved the insulation at his properties.

Harry and Meghan’s former home Frogmore Cottage had the lowest energy costs of the ten royal homes surveyed, estimated at £10,575. They are believed to have installed a green energy unit when they lived there to provide eco-friendly heat, hot water and electricity.

However, moving to their 1,350 square metre Santa Barbara home has increased Harry and Meghan’s energy bills to £12,418 a year due to the cost of air conditioning and running their swimming pool.

Uswitch.com has produced a calculator so people can discover how much it would cost to run their dream home.