Business gas for farms and agriculture

Farm gas usage varies wildly by what you do. Glasshouses run gas-fired heating year-round and CHP for both heat and CO2 enrichment. Grain dryers and crop processors run hot through autumn. Dairies need continuous hot water. Mixed farms layer farmhouse and worker-cottage heating on top of all of that. Standard small-business gas tariffs don’t price that profile fairly. We compare suppliers across the open UK market with agricultural usage in mind.

The mechanics of switching gas are the same as for any commercial site. We cover them in our guide to switching business gas. But farm-specific questions matter: whether you qualify for CCL relief via the horticulture or intensive livestock CCA, how to handle the boundary between farm-business gas and farmhouse-domestic gas, and whether biomethane works for ESG-conscious supply contracts.

Our wider business gas service covers the whole UK market. For farms we also look at multi-meter holdings, CHP-supported sites, and how on-farm AD output (if you’ve got an anaerobic digester) interacts with gas procurement.

Climate Change Agreement relief

Horticulture and intensive livestock sectors qualify for Climate Change Agreement (CCA) relief on gas. Around 90% off the CCL component, worth roughly 0.7p/kWh on heating gas. The agreement runs through the relevant trade body (NFU, BPC, HTA) and requires hitting energy-efficiency targets. We’ll flag whether you’re likely to qualify and route to a supplier who applies the relief correctly from day one of the new contract.

Glasshouse, CHP and high-volume sites

Large horticulture sites with CHP can pull millions of kWh of gas a year and usually sit on daily-metered (DM) contracts. Pricing at that volume works differently. Capacity, transport, and commodity all separate. We pull the line items apart and compare like-for-like rather than just shopping on headline unit rate. Fixed-vs-flex matters more here than at smaller volumes.

Farmhouse and worker cottages

Where the farmhouse or cottages share a gas supply with the farm business, the contract sits on commercial terms. But you might be losing the consumer price cap protection. Usually we recommend keeping domestic supplies separate where the meters are wired that way. Where everything’s on one commercial meter, we’ll model the trade-off so you see the maths.

How a farm gas switch works with us