Are infrared heaters cheap to run?

An infrared panel is rated in watts like any heater. At the current price cap of about 24.5p per kWh, a 300 W panel costs roughly 7p an hour, a 600 W panel about 15p, and a 900 W panel about 22p. There is no efficiency trick — watts in equals heat out — so anyone claiming infrared is '60% cheaper' than other electric heating is not being straight with you.

Infrared saves money by heating only the occupied zone, on demand, without warming empty rooms or the air near a high ceiling. Heat a home office for the hours you work in it, rather than running gas central heating for the whole house, and infrared can genuinely be the cheaper choice. Homes that were over-heating empty rooms with old storage heaters often use less total energy after switching.

The three levers that decide your bill are insulation (a leaky room loses heat two to three times faster), run time (heat one room for the hours you use it), and control (a good thermostat and timer stop panels running when the room is warm or empty).

For continuous, whole-home heating of a reasonably insulated house, a heat pump (COP ~3.2) uses about a third of the electricity for the same heat, and mains gas is cheaper per kWh than electricity today. So if you are heating everywhere, all the time, infrared will not be the cheapest. Use our running-cost calculator to see the real figure for your own room before deciding.