Minister warns of electricity price surge this summer

Speaking about the rising costs today, the Minister said as conflict in the Middle East continues, prices will jump by as much as 4-9% over the months of May, June and July.

He told RTE, “in electricity, there will be single-digit increases, but it again depends on each of the providers, looking at from 4% to 9% depending on the provider, gas more than that. But we are prepared for that.”

Minister O’Brien said he has also asked the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to consider “enhanced mechanisms” to track retail fuel prices during the crisis.

According to the CCPC, the most recent surge in prices were “driven by increases in wholesale costs” and were not due to price gouging by individual companies.

The price of home heating oil jumped by 67.5% between February and March and went up by a further 63.3% in the last twelve months.

Minister O’Brien said the government will need to be “flexible” when responding to this crisis and that he is in full support of retrofitting grants to help households with the rising energy costs.

RTE asked the Minister if the public should expect energy credits to feature in the upcoming Budget, and he said he is “not ruling anything out at the moment”.

He went on to say; “I want to be clear on this, we only just brought in additional measures. And the €750 million total package that we brought in is one of the most significant in all of Europe and I think people see that.”

However he did say it is the “intention” that an energy levy will be brought back in the Budget in October.