Allow about 10 mins

Students need to be aware that we power our homes in two ways:

• Electricity is used to run electrical appliances and devices. This is usually provided by the National Grid. About 3% of homes also have photovoltaic cells (often called solar panels) which use energy from sunlight to generate electricity for the home .
• Gas is used for heating and cooking. Most homes in the UK use gas heating and many people have hobs and/or ovens that use gas for cooking. A very small percentage of houses use oil, electric-powered heat pumps or district-wide heating (powered by hot water from factories or power stations).

Household energy is sold using the same unit for energy: the kilowatt-hour, also called a unit. Generally a unit of gas costs significantly less than a unit of electricity, but it is generally only used for heating and cooking.