{"id":471474,"date":"2026-05-28T15:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T15:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471474\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T15:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T15:19:08","slug":"electric-ireland-to-increase-electricity-prices-by-8-domestic-gas-costs-to-climb-by-7-7-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471474\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric Ireland to increase electricity prices by 8%, domestic gas costs to climb by 7.7% \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Electric Ireland<\/a> has announced an 8 per cent increase in the cost of its domestic electricity while gas bills are to go up by 7.7 per cent.<\/p>\n

The increases could leave many households worse off by more than \u20ac250 a year. <\/p>\n

The hike, which takes effect on July 1st, has been widely anticipated as a result of spiralling energy prices on global markets in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.<\/a><\/p>\n

In making the announcement, Electric Ireland, which has 1.1 million customers, stressed that it was the first time since October 2022 that it has increased its domestic prices.<\/p>\n

The company said that the 8 per cent increase in electricity costs would see an estimated annual bill as defined by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) climb by \u20ac11.52 per month for customers on the average standard tariff, while the 7.7 per cent increase in domestic gas would see those bills climb by around \u20ac9.73 per month.<\/p>\n

The provider said it had a \u201ccomprehensive hedging strategy in place which has limited the impact of rising wholesale energy prices to date\u201d but added that as its \u201cwholesale energy costs have increased significantly, it is now necessary to increase retail prices for our customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conflict in the Middle East continues to drive volatility in wholesale energy costs which have increased significantly,\u201d said Electric Ireland\u2019s Executive Director Pat Fenlon. <\/p>\n

\u201cLast winter, we acted to protect our customers by reducing gas prices and holding electricity rates steady during the period of highest demand, while most other suppliers increased their prices,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we cannot delay this increase any further due to the sustained upward price pressure on our wholesale energy costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the company accepted that \u201cmany customers face challenges with ongoing cost of living pressures\u201d and said that \u201calongside our pricing decisions, we are providing a range of supports, including access to Electric Ireland\u2019s Compassionate Assistance fund, flexible payment options, and energy efficiency advice to help customers better manage their bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the supplier is increasing the unit rate of its electricity and gas by 9.5 per cent each it is not increasing its standing charges so the net effect to its customers will be the slightly lower percentages it announced. <\/p>\n

According to Daragh Cassidy of price comparison and switching website, the increase will add around \u20ac138 a year to the average household\u2019s electricity bill and \u20ac117 to their gas bill, a total of \u20ac255 although houses that use more energy will see their bills climb by more than that. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s news was expected and I\u2019m surprised it didn\u2019t come a bit sooner to be honest,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cLast autumn, most of the major energy suppliers increased their electricity prices by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent due to sustained high wholesale electricity costs and higher network charges for maintaining the electricity grid. But Electric Ireland instead announced an electricity \u201cprice freeze\u201d for the winter months, alongside a small cut in gas prices. So this increase effectively brings its electricity prices back into line with the rest of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the announcement \u201cwill understandably worry households\u201d but stressed that it was \u201cnot necessarily the start of another widespread round of electricity price hikes across the market. Even after this increase, for example, Electric Ireland\u2019s standard electricity rates will still be lower than most of the other suppliers in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the picture for gas is slightly different. \u201cWholesale gas prices have risen by around 40 per cent to 50 per cent in recent weeks following renewed conflict in the Middle East and this is likely to put upward pressure on gas prices across the wider market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Electric Ireland has announced an 8 per cent increase in the cost of its domestic electricity while gas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12613,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-471474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-electric-ireland","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}