ESB looking for an increase of 30%

Wednesday, 18 June 2008 11:08
CONSUMERS FACE RECORD 30% HIKE IN ESB BILLS - The ESB is looking for a 30% increase in the price of electricity. If granted - and it could be in early autumn - it would add about €45 to the average two-monthly bill and push the average bill for a year to more than €1,100.

As if it wasn't hard enough on us all at present we are now going to see yet another increase in the cost of living :mad:
Everything seems it will be hit with the high cost of oil but why the ESB would want such a large increase of 30% is a bit much. We will find out soon enough how much money was made by them for year '07, no doubt more profits.


If we look at 2006:

• they made profits of €223 million.
• they had a staff reduction of nearly five hundred, since 2001 staff numbers at ESB have reduced by 2,000 (20%).
• for the first time in its history ESB connected more than 100,000 (105,127 customers) customers in a single year to the electricity networks.
• we the consumer pay the carbon tax, resulting in a figure of up to €300 million a year in unearned profits on the backs of businesses and consumers. Power companies stand to make an extra €1.6 billion over the next four years by charging customers for the carbon allowances they will get for nothing.

The CER allowed both Bord Gáis and the ESB to cut their domestic charges for 2008. Fair enough the price of gas and coal has risen by about 74% and 65% respectively since the CER’s price review last year, but that still doesn't justify a hike of 30% especially when you take into consideration all the above factors also.

thecaptain

mate, the green movement had not even started yet.

On a side note, are you one of these green people.

"lets save the world, lets cut co2".

Well baby, this is what we are seeing here, the average worker will be using candle light and bearing the cold within ten years because of this environment scam.

You have been warned.

stovelid

One word: competition.

KTRIC

F*cking a**holes :mad:

I'm sick of whats just coming down to pure greed now. We got a gas bill when I was living in Dublin one winter after the big price hike and it was one of the few times I actually seen my girlfriend crying.

thecaptain

stovelid wrote: »

One word: competition.

One word, two numbers.

AGENDA 21

The outline for your future, published by the United Nations. Read it if you want to discover the reasons why things are as they are.

stovelid

thecaptain wrote: »

One word, two numbers.

AGENDA 21

The outline for your future, published by the United Nations. Read it if you want to discover the reasons why things are as they are.

Four words:

Provide. Link. Reduce. Hectoring.

whiskeyman

stovelid wrote: »

One word: competition.

Competition is out there ya know...
As is usually the case, their competitors (Airtricity, Energia etc...) will probably do likewise and apply for rakehikes too.

DarkJager

And once again another company tries to justify its greed by using the "fuel crisis" as leverage. Maybe we should all start asking our employers for 30% pay increases...ya know, because of the rising costs of fuel... :rolleyes:

MoominPapa

thecaptain wrote: »

Read it if you want to discover the reasons why things are as they are.

I'm too lazy and time strapped - wanna give us a condensed version. This will also allow you to continue in your alarmist manner

Westwood

unbe****inglievable :mad: as if it wasnt expensive already. myself and the girlfriend have really cut corners over the past few months to try and reduce these prices which are always at the €200 mark for two months lecy. whats everyone else avergae bill? I feel ours is very high and we dont abuse it at all....

thecaptain

MoominPapa wrote: »

I'm too lazy and time strapped - wanna give us a condensed version. This will also allow you to continue in your alarmist manner

No problem.

All energy supplies are to be drastically reduced. The "useless eaters" are using up too much energy. The environment movement is the chosen method of introducing this plan. The people are to be brainwashed into thinking they are damaging GAIA, they will have to pay carbon taxes on everything. Eventually the costs will exceed all but the small elite.

Hence my campaigning against the false environment scare.

The old hegelian dialectic. Produce the problem, the people react as planned and then provide the solution.

As for competition, do you read the business pages. Merger after merger has occured in the last five years, and will continue into the future as power is gather into a few hands.

John D Rockefeller said "competition is a sin".

Degsy

CAfe En Seine is charging 6.50 a pint now and Taxi drivers want another pay increase to help them because they're living in "poverty and hardship".The word is GREED.

whiskeyman

Degsy wrote: »

CAfe En Seine is charging 6.50 a pint now and Taxi drivers want another pay increase to help them because they're living in "poverty and hardship".The word is GREED.

No one is forcing anyone to pay crazy money for so many goods and services though.
The real words are ignorance and indifference.

jester77

It's happening everywhere, not just Ireland.
Gas is going to go up 30% or 40% here, forget which they said!

whiskeyman

What will it take to shock people to really take drastic measure though to reduce energy consumption???

thecaptain

whiskeyman wrote: »

What will it take to shock people to really take drastic measure though to reduce energy consumption???

Why would you want to reduce energy consumption?

Glowing

thecaptain wrote: »

Why would you want to reduce energy consumption?

Eh, so it doesn't cost you 200 quid every 2 months ?! Didn't think it was rocket science.

Edit: My leccy bill is about 100 quid every two months, we can get that down to 70 or 80 during the summer. It's easy. Don't leave the lights on, don't leave the t.v on, don't use the tumble dryer (we don't actually have one), keep electric showers short-ish - just be concious of what you're leaving on when .....

Edit again: Oh neglected to say that a 30% ESB hike is PANTS!

thecaptain

Glowing wrote: »

Eh, so it doesn't cost you 200 quid every 2 months ?! Didn't think it was rocket science.

Edit: My leccy bill is about 100 quid every two months, we can get that down to 70 or 80 during the summer. It's easy. Don't leave the lights on, don't leave the t.v on, don't use the tumble dryer (we don't actually have one), keep electric showers short-ish - just be concious of what you're leaving on when .....

Mate, you are being molded. Of course if it costs more people will use less, however I would not use less based on "green" issues as they are all scare mongering.

Glowing

thecaptain wrote: »

however I would not use less based on "green" issues as they are all scare mongering.

Well that's up to you - I study energy systems and know the damage fossil fuels are doing to the environment, even if you DON'T take into account climate change. How can reducing our emissions (not just Co2, but methane, nitrous oxides etc) be a bad thing? Have you ever heard of acid rain?

But that's a whole different argument ....

thecaptain

Glowing wrote: »

Have you ever heard of acid rain?

....

Acid rain???? That was the 1980's, in the 70's it was global cooling, now it is CO2 and global warming.

The 90's was the hole in the o zone.

seamus

Glowing wrote: »

don't use the tumble dryer

Whatever about the easy stuff, not using the dryer simply isn't an option. Not for me anyway.

A dryer dries my clothes in about 2 hours. To dry them without a dryer takes two days. Within those two days I'll have to put on a second wash, which means that I have about 30 pieces of clothing, wet and unwearable, taking up a room in my house. And there's two of us.
We did for two months. I ended up putting on the heating in our "drying" room so that my stuff would be dry in one day instead of two. It was needless to say, much less efficient than the tumble dryer.

The government would be idiots to allow this through. They're already facing 12-18 months of recession and reduced affordability. An increase of 30% on electricity would result in crucification at the local elections.

Glowing

thecaptain wrote: »

Acid rain???? That was the 1980's, in the 70's it was global cooling, now it is CO2 and global warming.

The 90's was the hole in the o zone.

*bangs head off brick wall*

Edit: The o zone? Don't you mean the ozone layer? Hmm, you've done your research eh?

Westwood

Glowing wrote: »

My leccy bill is about 100 quid every two months, we can get that down to 70 or 80 during the summer. It's easy. Don't leave the lights on, don't leave the t.v on, don't use the tumble dryer (we don't actually have one), keep electric showers short-ish - just be concious of what you're leaving on when .....

I cant believe your lecy bills are 80 max during the summer?? is that including vat? ours are still 200+ wtf? we are very concious about what we use and dont use, its not a case of leaving lights on cause up north it dosent get dark till like 10pm most nights. the only thing I will say thats on quite a bit would be the computer!! maybe 15 hours a day sometimes more. would this have the most consumption me wonders.:rolleyes:

Glowing

Well we have a small house, so don't know if that makes a difference. Also we've no central heating upstairs (but very little insulation) so that shouldn't make too much of a difference either.

Putting the computer on power save should definitely help though!

stovelid

Westwood wrote: »

I cant believe your lecy bills are 80 max during the summer?? is that including vat? ours are still 200+ wtf?

Do you have electric heating?

We have a washing machine/dryer, electric shower etc (but have gas heating) and our bills are never more than 100, so I assume leccy heating would make up the difference.

DarkJager

Should we really care about global warming anymore?? The way the world is going now, its going to be a pretty ****ty place to live in 50 years anyway. Not to mention the eco friendly "biofuels" are causing a food shortage, so why do we bother?

seamus

Westwood wrote: »

would this have the most consumption me wonders.

Depends on how many extras you have hanging out of it, and whether you're on a standard rate or a dual rate.

Our place is all electricity - storage heaters and all. But we're dual rate. So our heating is all done at night, at half the usual price. For March/April, our bill came to €210.

The heating's been switched off for the last 6 weeks, so I don't expect it to come to more than €100 for May/June.

Glowing

We have oil central heating - but we use electric heaters upstairs in the winter (brrrr)!

I can't believe they're still building new houses with oil central heating by the way ....

Terry

Oh for fúcks sake.

Piss off casey.

MysticalSoul

My last bill came to €110 for two months, and gas for heating and hob came to €70 for two months, that is using a tumble drier, dishwasher etc. However apparently a dishwasher uses less energy than heating hot water does for the same job.

thecaptain

thecaptain wrote: »

On a side note, are you one of these green people.

"lets save the world, lets cut co2".

I am not, besides weather changes are due to a shift in the earths magnetic poles, not rising CO2

whiskeyman wrote: »

What will it take to shock people to really take drastic measure though to reduce energy consumption???

Anyone that has been cutting back on their usage in order to lower the cost of their bills won't be too happy with this, as the increase will more or less bring their bills back up to what they were paying before cutting down on usage. Would they rather we go back to the old days of candle light :mad:

stovelid wrote: »

We have a washing machine/dryer, electric shower etc (but have gas heating) and our bills are never more than 100.

More or less the same as yourself, my bills usually between €100 - €140.

Rb

seamus wrote: »

The government would be idiots to allow this through. They're already facing 12-18 months of recession and reduced affordability. An increase of 30% on electricity would result in crucification at the local elections.

Indeed. I'd imagine should they let this go through, it could well be the end of Fianna Fail

mikemac

Westwood wrote: »

unbe****inglievable :mad: as if it wasnt expensive already. myself and the girlfriend have really cut corners over the past few months to try and reduce these prices which are always at the €200 mark for two months lecy. whats everyone else avergae bill? I feel ours is very high and we dont abuse it at all....

€200?
If it's just the two of you in the gaff, then what exactly are you doing?
You say you aren't abusing but it still takes a lot to run up that mush. You're messing around somewhere. Time for you to do some research, lots of tips out there.

Last houseshare I was (with current prices) in had 3 people and it never went above €120, ever! And that included all the expensive to run devices like electric shower, immersion and a dryer. Gotto watch those dryers folks, very expensive to run.

Glowing

micmclo wrote: »

Gotto watch those dryers folks, very expensive to run.

I can understand a large family needing one, but for two people? We just put the wash on overnight, hang it out during the the next morning (it rains surprisingly little), then take it in in the evening, hang it inside overnight, and they're usually ready to wear the following morning.

Oh, replacing all your bulbs with energy savers will make a HUGE difference .....

Peteee

Don't know why anyone is surprised by this price increase.

What did you think the ESB used to power its power stations? Irish charm and baby leprechauns instead of Oil, Gas and Coal.

SimpleSam06

The tragedy is that we are absoloutely swimming in power here in this country, quite literally. Ireland is one of the best placed countries in the world to take advantage of wind power. A string of offshore turbines up the west coast could handily produce most or all of our power needs. Of course our political leadership is too busy counting the change from the Galway races last year to spot that one.

SimpleSam06

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

A string of offshore turbines up the west coast could handily produce most or all of our power needs.

About time they got off there backside and started putting these up quick.

seamus

Glowing wrote: »

We just put the wash on overnight, hang it out during the the next morning (it rains surprisingly little)

Ah you see, you're assuming that someone has an "out" in which to hang it

Terry

Peteee wrote: »

Don't know why anyone is surprised by this price increase.

What did you think the ESB used to power its power stations? Irish charm and baby leprechauns instead of Oil, Gas and Coal.

The one down the road from me uses water.
Irish water too.

Peteee

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

The tragedy is that we are absoloutely swimming in power here in this country, quite literally. Ireland is one of the best placed countries in the world to take advantage of wind power. A string of offshore turbines up the west coast could handily produce most or all of our power needs. Of course our political leadership is too busy counting the change from the Galway races last year to spot that one.

While I agree that Wind Power should be increased, You cant run the entire grid off it. You need a steady baseline provided by Nuclear, Oil etc power stations, with renewable energy augmenting these.

The one down the road from me uses water.
Irish water too.

And the other 89% of people who doesn't get the electricity from Hydro electric power in this country?

Degsy

I blame the rise in energy consumption squarely on women.They're not content to have teh light on in the room they're in,they have every light in the house switched on.When its "cold" ie less than 30 degrees c,they have all the heaters on,electric blankets,everything.When they turn on the immersion they often forget to turn it back off,sometimes its on for days.When boiling a kettle,it must be filled even if its only for one cup of tea.Then when the kettle boils they ignore it till it goes cold,then they hit the switch to boil it again,and again and again.They love cooking things in the oven..preheated of course and beleive that chickens take up to ten hours to cook.I remember coming home one evening when my ex was upstairs and noticing the red line on the meter moving so fast it was a total blur.It seemed she'd turned everything in the house that was electrical on,lights,cooker,immersion,electric blanket,everything.Its women i tells ya.

Alun

seamus wrote: »

Ah you see, you're assuming that someone has an "out" in which to hang it

We (just the 2 of us) don't have, or need, a tumble dryer either. We have a washing machine with a nice high spin speed (1400rpm or so) and the washing comes out practically dry anyway. Only takes a day to dry fully hanging on a rack in the spare bedroom or if needs must, some things such as shirts are dry enough when they come out of the machine that quickly running the iron over them while they're still slightly damp (which makes the job easier anyway) means they're ready to wear the next day.

SimpleSam06

Peteee wrote: »

While I agree that Wind Power should be increased, You cant run the entire grid off it. You need a steady baseline provided by Nuclear, Oil etc power stations, with renewable energy augmenting these.

For most countries you would be dead on right, but recent developments in deep water floating platforms for turbines combined with the much steadier deep water winds you get actually lead to a constant supply of power in the case of Ireland.

Even if that wasn't the case you can use a variety of methods to store wind power in case of slack - for example pumping water up into reservoirs, then letting it come down again when you need it.

I think children are the biggest wasters of electricity; never turn off lights (& or anything for that matter), leaving doors open, etc.

I'm winning the battle of training them to be more energy efficient, but it takes time.
The tumble dryer is the biggest eater of electricity here, closely followed by the washing machine.

ScumLord

Poo power is the way of the future, or biomass/bio-energy as the heads like to call it.

ESB are all con merchants. My last bill few bills where,

€12
€72 owed to me
€50
€30
€250
€120
€90

They're all over the place it's like some one's just making prices up.

I live in a two room apartment. I never use the washing machine, I broke the oven with 2 weeks of moving in. I don't do much cooking there (maybe once a week), I broke the heater, I have 1 tv, 1 clock radio, and a PC (600w with 5.1 speaker set), a fridge and 3 working light bulbs, where the **** do they come up with €250???? They even claimed to be under charging me yet they refund me 3 months later.

**** the modern world, I'm going native..

Glowing

seamus wrote: »

Ah you see, you're assuming that someone has an "out" in which to hang it

True. Although I do dry my clothes indoors in the winter!! Ah ha!

You have to admit it IS hilarious when you bring in clothes from the line frozen into a plank shape though ... just thought I'd share.

LadyE

Im fricken sick of the esb. Sick of it. My bills stands at about 400 every two months in a one bedroomed place. All year around. I even got a bill last year of 2k. Apparently they were undercharging me.

:mad::mad::mad:

SheroN

LadyE wrote: »

Im fricken sick of the esb. Sick of it. My bills stands at about 400 every two months in a one bedroomed place. All year around. I even got a bill last year of 2k. Apparently they were undercharging me.

:mad::mad::mad:

In a one bedroom place?

Do you do a lot of metal fabrication or something?

mikemac

LadyE wrote: »

Im fricken sick of the esb. Sick of it. My bills stands at about 400 every two months in a one bedroomed place. All year around. I even got a bill last year of 2k. Apparently they were undercharging me.

:mad::mad::mad:

Got a sauna and steamroom in your place? :pac:

LadyE

micmclo wrote: »

Got a sauna and steamroom in your place? :pac:

Fricken wish.:mad:

Glowing

LadyE wrote: »

Im fricken sick of the esb. Sick of it. My bills stands at about 400 every two months in a one bedroomed place. All year around. I even got a bill last year of 2k. Apparently they were undercharging me.

:mad::mad::mad:

what? HOW? Something funny going on there ....