Revealed: the postcodes that use the most electricity in the UK
A luxury row of townhouses in central London which claims to be “Europe’s greenest development” is home to Britain’s biggest electricity users.
SW1W 8BT is the postcode for Whistler Square in the Chelsea Barracks redevelopment which professes to be “London’s most coveted neighbourhood” and sits within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Official data on domestic electricity consumption for 2021 from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) shows that there were seven electricity meters in this postcode and the average consumption was 53,748.3 kWh.
The next highest mean consumption was 45,361.1 kWh for postcode RH13 0AT which has five meters and is the address of Kinsbrook, Horsham, West Sussex.
Lygon Place, Grosvenor Crescent and Clerks Place, all in London, rounded out the top five.
Chelsea Barracks, which is home to the most energy intensive postcode in Britain in 2021, posted a statement on its website on April 12, 2021, titled “The Most Sustainable Development in Europe” after it was awarded the LEED Platinum certificate.
This certificate was only obtained by 16 developments in the world and Chelsea Barracks is the only one in the UK with such accreditation, the statement said.
“The design of Chelsea Barracks’ collection of super-prime residences, amenities and public spaces are leading the way in green building practices,” it reads.
Chelsea Barracks was a functioning army barracks until the late Noughties and was purchased for almost £1 billion by Christian and Nick Candy, the property magnates, in partnership with Qatari Diar, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) which manages the sovereign wealth fund of the Qatari royal family and also owns Harrods.
However, the Candy brothers were ousted from the project after the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, personally complained to the Emir of Qatar about the “awful” design plans.
The Candy brothers received a settlement and the Qataris later bought the almost 13-acre site in its entirety and own 100 per cent of the land.
It has been reported that Christian Candy now owns several properties in Chelsea Barracks costing around £75 million which were purchased by the company “Whistler Square”.
Seven Whistler Square is currently listed on an estate agent’s website with a guide price of £53 million. It has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a private gym and spa and a 12-metre pool. The property has an EPC environmental rating of C.
The same estate agent also has a £43.7m guide price for a five-bedroom apartment on Grosvenor Crescent, SW1X 7EE, the third most energy intensive postcode in Britain, according to the data.
At the other end of the energy consumption scale is EH6 7FL, also known as South Carron Wynd, an unassuming road in Leith, Edinburgh. The average consumption in this postcode was 125.6 kwh, 427 times lower than Whistler Square.
The mean domestic consumption per household in Great Britain, according to official numbers, is 3,709.3 kWh, 29 times more than South Carron Wynd and 14.5 times less than the nation’s biggest consumer in Chelsea Barracks.
At the local authority level the figures reveal that more remote places used more electricity, with urban areas using less.
The top four biggest electricity-using areas are all islands (Shetland Islands, Isles of Scilly, Orkney Islands and Na h-Eileanan Siar).
The City of London was fifth, with Argyll and Bute and Highland sixth and seventh, respectively.
Cotswold, South Hams and King’s Lynn and West Norfolk round out the top ten. London dominates the top lowest using areas, with Hackney (2nd), Islington (3rd), Camden (4th) and Lambeth (9th) all in the top ten.
South Tyneside and North Tyneside are first and fifth in lowest average domestic consumption, respectively, with Liverpool (6th), Gateshead (7th), Blaenau Gwent (8th) and Sunderland (10th).
A spokesman for Chelsea Barracks told The Telegraph: “It is confirmed that the electricity at Chelsea Barracks is 100 per cent green generation.”
