WTH?
This is total madness, FIFTH price hike from Electric Ireland since the beginning of 2021. EI’s parent group - ESB - recorded €680m profit in 2021.
I genuinely do not know how any of us apart from the super-rich will survive this winter.
What is the government doing apart from sitting on their hands?
They do seem to be retaining reductions and allowances for pensioners etc as I read it?
They've been putting up their standing charges as well as the unit rate, will they do that again. Also, they only abolished the low usage standing charge in May 2022 after around 10 years of charging people extra for not using enough electricity.
Meanwhile, our useless authorities and governments have been farting around and delaying for years when it comes to measures to encourage home generation i.e. removing the 12 square metre limit for planning exempt solar panels and introducing feed in tariffs. A 15 kwp solar system (~80 square metres) on somebody's roof In Ireland could provide 12+ megawatts of electricity per year and even though very little of that would be in December and January, a household could still end up buying few or no units from their supplier in those 2 months.
Too true, the solution is to encourage domestic generation for at least some degree of self sufficiency. The commercial market supply approach has failed to benefit consumers, no competition between the companies, so the only hope is to fight back at a household level. Grants to insulate your house will still keep you as a captive customer, grants to generate at least some of your own requirement would be more directly beneficial in changing the dysfunctional market that our ineffective regulator has presided over.
can you leave them with the price change even if you in a contract with them
Normally a 50 euro penalty i believe, but where rare you going to go?
All of them will increase prices.
anywhere that will give me a discount for joining
Net Profit at ESB was actually 191 million last year. No idea why you'd use Operating Profit, when that's before tax, loan repayments etc. It also includes the businesses that ESB runs in Northern Ireland etc.
That's about a 5-6% return on investment, nothing particularly special about that. You'd need at least those sort of levels to be making and significant investments in power generation facilities, green energy etc. Any excess profits go back to the State as a dividend anyway, since they own it.
There is no magic solution. We are in for years of hardship. Many people including myself won't be able to pay and when people begin to get cut off which they will things will turn ugly. The water charge protests will seem like a tea party this time next year.
Outrageous comment! What right have you to interrupt the stream of self-righteous indignation with your calm, fact-based logic? Kindly desist!
I assume that these protests will take place outside the Russian Embassy - and will be led, as always, by Comrade Smirker Murphy?
Be cheaper to go to the Canaries for the whole Winter, and live with the standing charge. Must check the piggy bank again.
The standing charge increases are a kicker. Add that to all the unit cost hikes and then VAT applied to an already much higher amount.
If only the Irish government owned 95% of ESB Group who own Electric Ireland, if only.
Also consider that the government seems to have no intention of pausing or cancelling carbon taxes, which increase regularly, and the mongs in the tax advisory and social welfare quango have just advised that the excise on home heating kerosene be substantially increased. This excise is in addition to the carbon tax already on kerosene and it's added before you then pay VAT, so it's tax times tax.
Are the Irish government trying to provoke societal violence, because they are going about it the right way.
Then we would be paying more. Look at the M50 toll as an example.
It won't stop. They have a taste for meat now.
How precisely would that make the cost of gas imports lower? Use crayons to illustrate your answer.
Seriously ENOUGH is enough. We need to take the bull by the horns here and start marching and pounding the pavements in protest. It is serious for a lot of households...heat or eat, it's not funny anymore. What quality of life is that.
Good idea. Marching and pounding the pavements will help to keep us warm. And it's bound to force Putin to reduce the price of gas.
Of course it won't stop. Irish people don't by and large stand up for themselves and protest like they do on the continent. The water protests are the exception to the rule.
No you're right...just roll over and take this crap. Do absolutely nothing about it!
Time to grow a Backbone.
Some in the UK have had enough.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/08/26/dont-pay-why-are-brits-boycotting-energy-payments-and-what-are-the-consequences
Profit is still profit.
Do you think hard-pressed families can afford to fund green energy?
The ESB has been closing down power stations, and oil and Gas wholesale prices have also been falling of late.
It's simply becoming unaffordable now for people to be able to afford electricity prices, we are already among the highest in Europe, so something has to give. If we keep this up there will be huge unemployment as business fails all over the country.
A little more on ESB profits and earnings below.
The average pay for 7,870 staff employed by state-owned utility company ESB was €74,000 in 2021, according to the company’s annual report.
In addition, each staff member enjoyed an average pension payment benefit of €6,000 from their employer.
The group’s turnover increased to €5.4bn from €3.7bn the year before and the operating profit was €770m. The profit margin of 14.3% in 2021 widened from the 9.9% margin enjoyed in 2020.
After finance costs and impairments, ESB’s pre-tax profit was €290m.
Net cash inflow from operating activities was €1,560m, of which €80m was paid to the state in dividends. For the current year, the company has promised to pay its shareholder €126m.
ESB’s total liabilities expanded to €11.9bn in December 2021 from €9.9bn a year earlier. The company said that investment in electricity infrastructure was €1.2bn in 2021.
https://businessplus.ie/news/esb-widens-profit-margin/
I vary power sources so my ESB is way down. I know. not everyone can do this. I use a bottled gas cooker and in cold weather a solid fuel stove that heats the water and will run radiators. I started varying after living in an all electrichouse inan area where there were power cuts in bad weather. As they had been overcharging me for years they now owe me alarge amount...
I’m going to burn my passport and present myself as a refugee.
Biggins???
Oil and Gas are falling, so why is the ESB increasing prices?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/31/oil-markets-us-fuel-demand-china-covid-interest-rates-recession.html
This has nothing to do with Putin, it's nothing more than price gouging.
People will just cancel their direct debits and the energy companies will have to be bailed out. No one can pay these prices, it's the only way I see this going. And you think the 2008 financial crash bank bailout and Covid was bad, the numbers been banded about Europe are absolutely eye watering.
We have our own Gas Fields, and we have peat Power Stations.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/1108/1089500-esb-power-plants/#:~:text=Today%2C%20ESB%20said%20that%20having,the%20end%20of%20December%202020.
Great, what time and where are we meeting for the protest you are organising?
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