Serious Price hike on Electricity - adding €200 to annual bill

There was a time when it was the responsibility of generators to manage their supply to suit the needs of consumers. Now we have 'progressed' to the reverse.

Many would argue that didn't work in the 1980's.

The pass through charges I mentioned above are going to our public (semi) state organisations, which own the grid.

If the ESB had full control over generation and distribution I don't think they'd be very friendly with their pricing. As evidenced in the recent past in the thuggish manner they threatened the government and public with power outages when they wanted cold hard cash for themselves.

The UK did something similar during the recent price hikes panic. They gave a price cap of some sort. I presume the gov paid any excess over the price cap or just did it by legislation 🤷

We got our €150 rebates. I can't even remember how many were given out per house!

Yeah, just got the email from Bord Gais. Thankfully I'm no longer a customer, haven't been for years, but still get these emails. 13.5% increase is insane.

I'm with Electric Ireland (electricity only) and am just waiting for them to follow suit with a price increase, even though they say there won't be one. We will see….

Another one here with Bord Gais. A big increase. I think Electric Ireland customers will be safe until next year.

IIve Been with BG for electric for quite a few years now, as they always did me a decent discount.

Suspect ill be moving at renewal.

It's only going to reduce your electricity bill, not negate it altogether.

Saw a survey recently where our electricity prices were among the most expensive in Europe. Am amazed people do not seem to care much about it, and our politicians do not seem too bothered about it either.

I think we're all aware, the problem is that the country is restricted from doing anything about it.

For a resource poor country like Ireland, nuclear would be one typical route to gain energy security. Unfortunately we are constitutionally barred from going down that path.

The other option is to roll back on our carbon commitments. We could fire up the Moneypoint coal generation facility, or we look at reviving some of the baseload oil/gas generation facilities like Poolbeg. If we do that then we are liable for heavy EU carbon fines.

That leaves us with one option, more wind and more battery storage. Not only are the capital costs with these massive (funded by higher bills), we are still going to be reliant on expensive imported gas when the wind isn't blowing (funded by higher bills).

It was cheap as there was oil and peat being burned to the detriment of society and our nations health. And we were probably the second poorest country in the EC anyway!

It is difficult comparing then and now. We have to predict how a monopoly would work now, not compare to prices from 40 years ago when assets were 40 years newer. We'd still have asset replacement costs, R&D to work in renewables. We'd still have those costs via a monopoly or market liberalisation.

Comparing then and now is a nonsense.

Well if true nobody has read the report in that case.

It's a psychological issue. Food, diesel, car insurance these have to be paid first on a daily or weekly basis. People who are skint have been cleaned out and then a 60 day bill comes in and it gets noticed more cos it's a lump sum of sorts.