"Green" policies are destroying this country

The average strike price for renewables at the RESS 2 auction in June was 100% higher than the wholesale cost of electricity averaged over 2019. Since the RESS support period lasts until 2040, I think it's reasonable to call that "permanent". How much higher it will go in future auction rounds is anybody's guess because Eamon Ryan and the government haven't deigned to provide any costed estimates. That's despite being urged to do so by the Irish Academy of Engineering and other calls for them to come clean about the cost to society.

If a renovation costs 10k when you introduce a 5k grant the renovation will go up to 15k.

The grant gets swallowed up by the installer, wholesaler and manufacture.

The homeowner ends up paying the whole lot.

Hat happens to the RGI gas boiler installers post 2025?

People won’t be able to afford these loans but will need their boilers fixed- will we end up with lads doing nixers on boilers that may be unsafe? GP haven’t even considered this.

I’ve bought a whole shed of timber and a few bags of coal just in case.

I wouldn’t have bothered but I know there is no gas storage in the land and we generate at least 60% of our electricity via gas- at least the family will be warm this winter whatever happens.

Except that's complete bullshit

There are plenty of options that are way cheaper than 60k

This for example, costs about 8k without any grants (grants may yet be available for these kinds of upgrades)

https://tepeo.com/thezeb

Not as efficient as a heat pump, but with smart metering they can use the lower rates when demand is low to heat the water so the cost for the heating is lower than current gas prices

Thanks to Vladimir Putin

Why are you defending Putin?

Yes Vlad. nothing to do with you at all.

It's all the greens fault

Did you not say recently that smart meters were nothing other than a scam, yet now it seems they are fine if you fork out 8 grand for a glorified electric water heater ?

Unless you are living in a sealed box, which the vast majority of homes are not, there is nothing efficient about a heat pump and there is nothing bullshit about the cost of retrofitting such homes to sealed box level.

It will heat your radiators to the same temperature a gas boiler would (15kw)

If your rads warm the house, then this will warm the house

I said the regulator is failing to regulate the utilities to make smart metres worthwhile or to make the plans easy to compare or understand for the average consumer. I've been on all the major suppliers looking to compare rates and they're deliberately confusing and hard to compare

If you search around, you can get night rates where the electricity is 8c per unit between 2 and 4am, which would be a good time to recharge your storage heater. They come with apps that allow you to schedule these.

Ultimately the grid will go to dynamic pricing as we move away from peak demand, and towards supply based pricing. This is inevitable, and smart metres were brought in to facilitate this. But we need a regulator to hold the utilities to account and to not take advantage of their customers

The amount of baiting and switching that goes on here

Renewable electricity is a lot cheaper than gas at the moment.

The price of gas is driving up the price of electricity. The retail price of electricity is dictated by the levels of subsidies, VAT and standing charges and PSO levies, if any that governments apply to electricity bills which vary by country.

France is always used as the benchmark for lower electricity prices, this is because they are massively subsidised through EDF selling electricity way below cost.

If you want cheaper electricity in Ireland, get your pen out and write to your TD and demand action.