Energy costs remain one of the biggest pressures facing UK manufacturers. But while much of the focus is on tariffs and supply, there’s a quieter problem hiding in plain sight on factory floors across the country: machines consuming energy when no one is using them.
At FourJaw, our latest analysis reveals that UK manufacturers are wasting up to £408 million annually by leaving production machinery powered on when factories are closed.
1.8 TWh of wasted energy for doing nothing
Using machine monitoring data alongside figures from the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, we estimate that around 1.8 TWh of electricity is wasted every year by machines left idling off-shift.
To put that into perspective:
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That’s around 0.64% of total UK electricity usage
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Enough energy to power approximately 500,000 homes for a year
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All consumed while machines aren’t producing anything
This isn’t about inefficient processes or poor-quality equipment. It’s about machines simply being left on because “that’s how it’s always been done”.
Why idle energy use is such a big issue for SMEs
The problem is particularly acute among small and medium-sized manufacturers operating single-shift or day-only production schedules.
Our analysis suggests that around 180,000 UK manufacturers fall into this category, many without a formal off-shift switch-off policy. In these environments, machines are often left running overnight or over weekends as a precaution, even when they don’t need to be.
Individually, the energy draw might seem insignificant. But it adds up fast.
In a typical single-shift factory, a machine idling off-shift can consume around 50 kWh per week. At today’s prices, that equates to roughly £450 per machine, per year for no productive output at all.
Multiply that across a shop floor, and the cost becomes impossible to ignore.
High UK energy prices make this impossible to overlook
UK manufacturers are already paying around twice the EU average for electricity. We estimate that total electricity spend across UK manufacturing will reach £14.7 billion, with more than half of that used to power production machinery.
When energy is that expensive, idle consumption isn’t just wasteful, it’s a direct hit to margins.
Historically, many manufacturers have avoided powering machines down because of concerns around warm-up times, wear and tear, or reliability. That caution made sense when energy was cheap and data was scarce.
That’s no longer the case.
Data changes the decision
Most large manufacturers now monitor machine-level energy and productivity data. That allows them to compare the true cost of idling versus powering down and warming up and to make decisions based on evidence, not assumptions.
What we’re increasingly seeing is that SME manufacturers have the most to gain from taking the same approach.
New regulations requiring manufacturers to calculate per-unit carbon emissions are accelerating this shift. Machine-level data is no longer a “nice to have”; it’s becoming essential for both cost control and sustainability reporting.
And when manufacturers can clearly see what their machines are doing off-shift, they’re often surprised by just how much energy and money are being wasted.
A simple change, with a big impact
Reducing idle energy use doesn’t require new machinery or major capital investment. In many cases, it starts with:
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Understanding which machines actually need to stay powered
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Measuring the real cost of warm-up versus idle time
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Creating clear, data-backed off-shift policies
For manufacturers under pressure from energy costs, carbon reporting, and tight margins, it’s one of the fastest ways to make a meaningful difference.
And as energy prices show no sign of returning to historic lows, it’s a habit the industry can no longer afford to ignore.
Methodology
Our analysis draws on multiple data sources, including Energy Consumption, Quarterly Energy Prices and Energy Efficiency information from the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Business Population Estimates from the Department for Business and Trade, and FourJaw’s machine-monitoring software. We used an employee-to-machine ratio of 1.5:1, typical in semi-automated factories, to estimate the number of machines in operation and included only UK manufacturers that primarily operate single-shift or conventional day schedules in our calculations.
