{"id":535802,"date":"2026-04-17T10:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535802\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:44:07","slug":"households-could-face-electricity-price-rises-within-weeks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535802\/","title":{"rendered":"Households could face electricity price rises within weeks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Households could face higher electricity bills from next month as the crisis<\/a> in the Middle East continues, energy industry sources predict.<\/p>\n

Irish families pay \u20ac1,700 a year on average for electricity, a report from the Economic and Social Research Institute<\/a> confirmed this week.<\/p>\n

But senior industry figures believe they could start paying more in the coming weeks as the fallout from the US-Iran conflict continues to roil global energy markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally you are looking at May or June for increases in retail electricity prices,\u201d one executive said. \u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019re monitoring on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Electricity prices are closely tied to natural gas, which is used to generate about half the power used in the Republic.<\/p>\n

Natural gas prices almost doubled in March as Iranian retaliation for US-Israeli attacks halted production in Qatar and shut the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and gas shipping lane.<\/p>\n

It comes as the head of the world\u2019s energy watchdog on Thursday warned that Europe only has six weeks\u2019 supply of jet fuel<\/a> because of the conflict.<\/p>\n

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency<\/a>, warned there could be flight cancellations \u201csoon\u201d if oil supplies remain restricted by the Iran war. He said Asian countries such as Japan, India and China that rely on energy from the Middle East are on \u201cthe front line\u201d, but pressure will then \u201ccome to Europe and the Americas\u201d.<\/p>\n

Irish industry sources did not say by how much they expected electricity prices here to increase.<\/p>\n

However, they stressed that the price shock that followed the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict was not as severe as the market reaction to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say we\u2019re going to see some increases this time,\u201d said one insider.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut hopefully they will be nothing like what we saw after Ukraine, and hopefully they will be reasonably moderate.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Even the best-case scenario is bad\u2019: EU chief warns of higher gas prices \u2018for years\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, energy businesses here expect gas prices to remain high even if the US and Iran agree a peace deal quickly.<\/p>\n

Iranian attacks halted and damaged liquefied natural gas producer QatarEnergy\u2019s facilities. Repairing this and restoring output to pre-war levels could take months, sources estimate.<\/p>\n

Key natural gas prices rose 90 per cent last month on London\u2019s Intercontinental Exchange, where much of the fuel is traded.<\/p>\n

On average, electricity companies looking to buy gas up to 12 months in advance, paid 147p a therm \u2013 the unit in which it is sold \u2013 in March. In December the equivalent price was 77p.<\/p>\n

Electricity suppliers buy power months and even years in advance, a practice known as hedging, which insulates customers against price volatility, said Dara Lynott, chief executive of the Electricity Association of Ireland.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Four ways the Iran war could make life more expensiveOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said companies will decide on their own prices and responses to the crisis.<\/p>\n

News of likely electricity price increases comes days after the Government agreed the second of two deals on easing motor fuel hikes likely to cost it \u20ac505 million following protests and blockades last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Households could face higher electricity bills from next month as the crisis in the Middle East continues, energy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,3363,1294,156576,122025,17128,34728,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-535802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cost-of-living","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-energy-crisis","12":"tag-esri","13":"tag-international-energy-agency","14":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}