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Electricity 'other charges'

Andy From Sligo

Just dug my electricity bill out to have a look at my unit rate and noticed all the other charges:

standing charge - in this day and age a standing charge, its not a pre-pay meter and everyone has to have an electricity meter at their house, its not your property and you dont and will never ever own it and just have to pay it regardless every 2 months. @ nearly €40 for 2 months

PSO Levy - again another 2month charge, not too dear I suppose @ €6.46 for 2 months

VAT: - granted at a reduced rate of 9% as opposed to VAT on goods that is 23% - but its still a tax …. and its a service . not a physical goods you can buy and hold in your hands .

Electricity bills are dear enough these days without all these added extra charges added onto it - I just think they should be abolished , anyone agree with me or am I being petty?

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Comments

zell12

Yes, you are being petty

suave.4u

No you are not being petty. You have raised valid points. We are being taken for a ride, a 100%

steinbock123

Yeah the standing charge really riles me up when I think about it.
It’s the same with the feckin’ gas too!

FishOnABike

Te standing charge is for the ESB networks infastucture - high voltage grid, high voltage substations, low voltage network, low voltage transformer, meter and meter reading. Rural customers pay approx. 25% higher D2 standing charge than the urban D1 rate.

The electricity suppliers could hide the standing charge by including it in a slightly higher unit rate but it would still have to be paid. All that infrastructure doesn't come for free.

Akrasia

Standing charge means people with holiday homes or other vacant properties have to pay something to support the network even when the house is empty, and this is a good thing because **** people who let houses lie empty during a housing crisis

magicbastarder

You could ring the ESB and suggest to them that you could waive the standing charge by driving to them and collecting the electricity yourself.

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559330#Comment_123559330

Would it fit in the boot though 😃

baxterooneydoody

I can understand the need to make a profit, but electric Ireland made over 700 million after tax in 2024. I can't see why they can't work a year in hand and any profit made in the year at hand should go back into the network and the customers in the form of lower charges. Why does a state body need to be in profit, as long as its covering the infrastructure and breaking even then profits should come back to the customer in the form of lower charges.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559344#Comment_123559344

electrons are f'ing tiny. like, smaller than bluebottles.

magicbastarder

regarding the cost of standing charges - one stat i saw repeated after Eowyn was that despite having something like one fourteenth of the population of the UK, we have one third the number of transformers; and it'll be interesting to see if there's knock-on effects on the standing charge from the cost of repair after Eowyn.

JVince

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559376#Comment_123559376

you have to compare like with like. In Ireland ESB use a lot of small pole mounted transformers due to the number of single dwelling and small groups of houses / businesses.

Also its Ireland V Britain as Northern Ireland is included in any "Ireland" figures.

Land area comparison also has to be taken into account. Ireland circa 100,000 sq km, Britain 220,000 sq km

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559359#Comment_123559359

The ESB is in competition with other suppliers. It can just give away free electricity.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559465#Comment_123559465

that was kinda my point. we have a very distributed network because of population patterns. but that network will cost more to run per customer than in the UK.

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559359#Comment_123559359

Electric Ireland is a separate entity to ESB Networks. Should all the other ten or so electricity retailers also donate their profit to ESB networks?

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559302#Comment_123559302

Housing crisis or not, if you can't afford your secondary uninhabited home because of the meter standing charges then you clearly can't afford a second house

Now I think there's a fair question to be asked and that is why the standing charge varies by supplier. Surely the cost of high voltage grid, high voltage substations, low voltage network, low voltage transformer, meter and meter reading shouldn't be different across suppliers?

I say 'supplier' but realistically ESBN/Eirgrid provide the infrastructure so really we should use the term "billing companies" as they don't actually supply anything

A smart thing to do would be to re-nationalise our electricity sector. Having 11 suppliers in this country means there's 11 different accountancy teams, 11 different CEOs, 11 different groups of middle managers and investors. Doing it something once instead of eleven times would surely reduce prices considerably

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559376#Comment_123559376

Uh-huh, likely to be approved https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/upgrade-of-electricity-grid-to-add-83-to-householder-bills/a1010976593.html

celtic_oz

ESB Networks' operating profit in 2023 was €359 million. This was an increase of €152 million on their 2022 operating profit.

baxterooneydoody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559487#Comment_123559487

As a state body it would blow its competitors out of the water if they were able to give any surplus back to the grid and therefore lower prices for consumers

baxterooneydoody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559616#Comment_123559616

My point is that it's owned by the government and in turn by the Irish people, it shouldn't need to make a profit, if it operated on a yearly break even basis it could lower the cost to its customers. Their competitors could do what they wanted

soram

My problem is that the standing charge is not transparent. I would gladly pay it directly to ESB Networks. But EI and I guess the other resellers charge different standing charges for different packages. The so called 'cheap' EV rate for night charging has a much higher standing charge than the normal tariffs which completely negates the cheaper front page EV rate in most cases. And to see it you have to click down multiple levels on the website.

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561707#Comment_123561707

Searching online -

Electric Ireland's profits from its customer-solutions division, which includes its 1.4 million electricity and gas customers in Ireland, soared to €113 million in 2024.

that's less than €81 per customer, hardly making money hand over fist.

baxterooneydoody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561814#Comment_123561814

That's not my point. There is no need for a state body to make a profit. A break-even model would do the same thing with the government covering any costs, which they could reclaim back the year after from profits, and I'm sure many people would gladly take the €81 if it was going

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123562237#Comment_123562237

Actually, as a company, it is legally OBLIGED to make a profit. If it doesn't make a profit, how do you think it is going to invest?

As a dominant electricity provider, it is obliged to to NOT unbalance the electricity market.

lau1247

They should start a challenge to encourage self sufficiency where if your usage cost equivalent is less than those charges added together, you get it half price 😉