Given the lower prices, a business tariff may appear to be a no-brainer, but there are a few things to consider.

1. Usage Levels

To be able to switch to a business tariff, you must use a significant portion of the energy in your home for business purposes.

Although 50% is a good starting point, energy providers have their own set of rules.

Don’t be concerned if this appears to be a high bar. If you work from home all day, with lights, heating, a computer, a printer, and all the other standard office equipment, you may reach the 50% mark.

You can test this by taking meter readings at the start and end of each working day for a week and calculating the percentage of energy used while working versus energy used while not working.

Remember not to include items such as your refrigerator, which would consume electricity all day whether you worked from home or not.

2. Business Status

You must be registered as a business or have a business rates document or other proof of your company’s existence, such as a website or a compliment slip. The energy supplier will want to see something tangible to confirm that you do, in fact, have a business and that it is run from your home.

3. Cost Comparison

You must be certain that it will be less expensive. To find the best domestic tariff for you, use a domestic price comparison website. But don’t jump right away.

Once you’ve determined your domestic offer, contact 360Business energy to see how the cheapest business tariffs stack up. 360 Business energy will calculate VAT and CCL for you, giving you a complete cost picture.

And please let us know what you’re doing so that we can tailor the offers to your specific requirements.

4. Meter Profile

While no new meters are required to switch to a business tariff, your meter will be assigned a new ‘profile.’ That profile will model your consumption differently than a household tariff, which is good news because it assumes you use more energy during the day, when it is cheaper, rather than in the mornings and early evenings when domestic demand prices are higher.

5. Tariff at a Fixed Price for the Life of the Contract

Tariffs for commercial energy are typically fixed. This means you’ll pay the same rate from the time you sign your contract until it expires.

While fixed price domestic tariffs are available, they are not as fixed in terms of contract lengths and thus offer less price protection than a business energy contract.

Business energy contracts and prices can range from one month to five years!

On the one hand, this is reassuring because it helps you budget and protects you from price increases; on the other hand, if prices fall, the unit rate and standing charge you pay will remain unchanged.

You can pay a fee (usually £20 – £100) to get out of a fixed-price contract with a domestic energy tariff, but you can’t switch while you’re still in a contract unless you pay the full value of the contract outright, which isn’t an appealing prospect. This risk must be balanced against the security of knowing your price will not change regardless of the direction of the underlying market.

Protection for Regulators

Business energy customers will not be protected to the same extent as domestic energy customers by the regulator Ofgem and customer bodies such as Consumer Futures. While this is not surprising, it can result in a fundamentally different customer experience because a business owner is naturally expected to be more commercially savvy than a householder.

Regardless, if you run a business from home, you may well fit the definition of a micro business, and it is highly likely that you do.

Micro businesses consume less than 200,000 kWh of gas or 55,000 kWh of electricity per year, have fewer than ten employees (or their full-time equivalent), and have an annual turnover or annual balance sheet total of €2 million or less.

Businesses in this category receive domestic-like protections and are safely shielded from some of the commercial challenges that large energy-buying businesses face.

More information can be found in our guide to business energy regulation.

7. Taxation, energy, and telecommuting

Even if you decide to keep your domestic tariff, there is a benefit to working from home.

You can claim the electricity and gas you use while working as a legitimate business expense, whether you’re on a business energy tariff or a domestic energy tariff.

To do so, divide your energy consumption by the proportion of your house that your office/workspace occupies.

For example, if you used a small room in your house as an office, accounting for 5% of the total floor area, and your electricity bill for heating and lighting was £300, you could claim £15, or 5% of the total.

You can also make a claim based on the amount of energy used by your company.

For example, if you worked from your living room half the time and your family used it the other half, and it represented 10% of the area of the house, you could claim £75, based on a total energy bill of £1500 – 10% of which is used in the living room, and then halved because you only use that room for work half the time.

These examples are from HMRC and are only for illustration purposes. To be certain of your rights, you should investigate what you might be able to claim in your specific situation.