Households with DVD players face £3.36 charges from July

Watching films on DVD or Blu-Ray players could be costing some UK households around £3.36 under the incoming price cap when projected over 12 months, according to calculations by The Express. Last Wednesday (May 27), the energy regulator Ofgem announced a 13% increase of the energy price cap for the period covering Monday, July 1 to September 30, 2026.

The price cap refers to the default tariff applied when a customer has not signed up for a fixed-rate tariff, the regulator explains on its website. The cap sets a maximum rate per unit and standing charge that can be billed to customers for their energy use (both electricity and gas), as is set by Ofgem. Ofgem said the increase is a “result of higher wholesale gas prices, caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”, with fuel and other costs skyrocketing in the wake of the US and Israel‘s late February strikes on Iran.

The rise factored into the cap largely is made up by the surging price of gas, but electricity has risen by around 5% too.

From July 1, people in England, Wales, and Scotland on a standard variable tariff, and who pay for their electricity via Direct Debit, will pay 26.11p per kilowatt hour (kWh) on average, significantly higher than the current April price cap (24.67p per kWh).

It means you may have costlier electricity bills next month, at a time when other costs, including the price of petrol and groceries are also uncomfortably high for many Britons.

While most appliances don’t cost much to run, they can add surprising sums to your electricity costs bills over time when you combine them all together.

One device that’s among the lowest contributors to your bill is a DVD or Blu-Ray player. While streaming has become the dominant way to watch films and TV shows, many movie buffs are moving back to physical media in search of superior audio and visual quality, or to watch more obscure films not hosted on the main streaming platforms.

Research by Uswitch looking at appliance usage and costs estimated that they see around 93.1 minutes of use per week on average, but we’ll use an hour and 33 minutes to simplify the calculation.

Citizens Advice’s electricity cost calculator allows you to enter this usage and estimate costs over 12 months under a certain price cap based on a standardised estimate of the power these devices consume.

According to the tool, at that level of power consumption and usage, a typical DVD player would add around 2p to your bill per week, and 7p per month under the current April cap. That comes to around 84p if projected over 12 months.

These costs would remain the same under the July price cap, according to the tool, as the price is increasing by only fractions of a penny.

However, if you combine that with the costs a standard TV is racking up over those 93 minutes per week (which will increase from around 20p per month to 21p per month under the July cap) it comes to £3.36 when projected over a 12 month period.

The price has increased by around 5% but as its starting from a low base line in terms of cost for both products, the monthly increases are small.

But usage – and therefore costs – will obviously vary greatly, and it also doesn’t take into account the power you’re wasting by leaving the appliances on standby.

Additionally, while the estimates can give us an illustrative sense of the costs the cap represents over a longer period, the maximum limit on unit rates and standard charges is reviewed by the regulator every three months and doesn’t remain in place for a full year.

You will also have to take into account the daily standing charge for using electricity, which will decrease slightly to 57.19p per day from July 1, though this is a flat fee covering all the electricity you’re using.

One way to protect yourself from price cap hikes is to get on a fixed rate that can shield you from global shocks over a set period.

Ofgem says currently, 40% (22 million) of accounts are fixed tariffs and are therefore unaffected by the July 1 price rise.