The Current #017: Three More Electricity Price Rises Land in October
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If you are with SSE Airtricity, Bord Gáis or Energia, your electricity bill goes up in the next three weeks. Here are the dates and the numbers, what is worth doing in the days before your own supplier moves, the two-minute meter reading almost everybody forgets, and what changes for every household on October 1st.
Who is going up, and when
Four suppliers have now announced increases for this autumn. The dates matter, because what you do before them is worth more than anything you do after:
- Pinergy went up 7.6% on September 14th, about €169 a year on a typical bill. That one has already landed.
- SSE Airtricity from October 5th: electricity up 8.9%, gas up 9.3%, dual fuel up 9.1%, which they put at around 85 cent a day.
- Bord Gáis Energy from October 9th: electricity up 8.8% (about €177 a year), gas up 9.3%. A dual fuel home is looking at roughly €317 more a year. It is their first gas increase in four years.
- Energia from October 12th: electricity up by as much as 9.4%.
- Electric Ireland went up 8% back in July and Flogas about 11%, so at this stage it is the whole market moving rather than one supplier.
Every one of them gave the same two reasons: wholesale gas costs and rising network charges.
What is actually worth doing in the next two weeks
Switching is the only move that makes a real difference to the unit rate. It is free, and your electricity is never interrupted:
- Check which supplier you are actually with, and what you pay. Not the brand on the app, the unit rate and the standing charge on your latest bill. You cannot compare anything without those two numbers.
- If you have been with the same supplier more than a year, you are almost certainly on the standard rate. Discounts run for 12 months and then quietly stop. That is where the €300 to €500 a year usually is.
- Switching takes about 10 to 15 working days and your supply is never interrupted, so if you start this week you are through before the October dates.
- Compare on the total annual cost, not the headline discount. A big percentage off an expensive rate can still cost more than a smaller discount off a cheaper one.
The two-minute job everybody forgets: take a meter reading
If you are staying put, do this one thing:
- Submit a reading on or just before the day your rise lands. That way the units you have already used are billed at the old rate rather than estimated across the change.
- If you have a smart meter you can skip this. Your supplier already has the half-hourly data.
- It takes two minutes on your supplier’s app or website, and it is the single most forgotten thing every time prices move.
- Take a photo of the meter as well. If a bill looks wrong later, that photo settles it.
And on October 1st, something changes for everyone
Separately from the suppliers, the regulator has set the charges that apply to every household from October 1st:
- Network charges (running the wires and poles) add roughly €41 a year to a typical home.
- The PSO levy drops to about 56 cent a month including VAT, down from around €1.59.
- Net effect is a small increase, and it applies to every home in the country no matter who supplies you. It is part of why the suppliers above all moved at once.
Fuel Allowance is now open
The season opened this week. It is €38 a week for 28 weeks, about €1,064, and you can take it weekly or in two lump sums. Apply on MyWelfare.ie. If anyone in your house is aged 70 or over, check the Household Benefits Package as well, because a household can hold both.
Control what you can control
You cannot do much about the unit rate. What you can stop paying for is heat, hot water and lighting that nobody is home to use. A plug-in timer or a smart plug costs less than a week of the increases above, and it keeps working every week after that.
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