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LAST UPDATE | 15 Nov 2023
CLOSE TO A quarter of households and close to a third of businesses are in arrears on their gas bills.
Meanwhile, 12% of households and 15% of businesses are in arrears when it comes to electricity bills.
The information will be outlined later today in an opening statement from the Commission for Regulation of Utilities to an Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action.
Today’s committee will be discussing future licences and contracts to connect data centres to the gas network.
The CRU will tell the committee that it is currently reviewing a “pathway” for new large energy users, such as data centres, to connect to electricity and gas systems in a way that “minimises the impact on national carbon emissions”.
As part of the Review, the CRU is considering criteria such as the requirement for a Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA) for renewable energy.
A CPPA is a long-term contract under which a business agrees to buy some, or all, of its electricity directly from a renewable energy generator.
The CRU will also outline its support for the planning process for data centres and other large energy users to include a provision heat export capability.
This would involve recovering waste heat from the data centres in a district heating system.
As part of its opening statement, the CRU provided retail market data on customer arrears up to the end of Quarter 3 of this year.
In the period from July to September, just under 160,000 (159,994) households were behind on their gas bills, equating to 23% of domestic gas customers.
Meanwhile, 15,501 businesses were in arrears on their gas bills in the third quarter of this year, equating to 29% of non-domestic gas customers.
And while the percentage of electricity customers who are in arrears is not as stark, the number of customers is considerably higher.
More than 275,000 (275,039) households are in arrears on their electricity bills, 12% of households.
For non-domestic electricity customers, this figure is 46,231, equating to 15% of businesses.
Last year, 2,031 households were disconnected for non-payment of electricity and 864 households were disconnected for non-payment of gas bills.
As of September of this year, 710 households have been disconnected for non-payment of electricity and 1,113 have been disconnected for non-payment of gas.
For non-domestic accounts, 465 were disconnected last year for non-payment of electricity while 104 were disconnected for non-payment of gas.
As of September, 352 businesses have been disconnected for non-payment of electricity and 102 have been disconnected for non-payment of gas.
Today’s committee will also hear from the Climate Change Advisory Council.
Its chair Marie Donnelly will note Eirgrid’s estimate that demand for electricity will increase by 34% by the end of the decade, with the largest growth coming from data centres.
By 2030, data centres are projected to account for 23% of electricity demand in Ireland.
Donnelly will also outline concerns over the rate of pace for delivering onshore renewable energy from wind and solar, which she described as “significantly lower than required” to reach the State’s climate targets.
Donnelly will also caution that the “delay to the expansion of our onshore renewable capacity, along with the continued use of coal in electricity generation, means that steeper emissions reductions will be required in the future”.
She too will call for new data centres and other large energy users to be required to build-in heat export ability at the time of initial construction.
Donnelly will also recommend that planning permission for all data centres should require Corporate Power Purchase Agreements for renewable electricity.
The Climate Change Advisory Council will today recommend that Gas Networks Ireland should not sign any more contracts to connect data centres to the gas network where the centre would be powered mainly by on-site fossil fuel generation.
It will also recommend that each energy system operator should work with large energy users, such as data centres, “to facilitate accurate hourly emissions reporting and grid carbon-intensity transparency”.
Donnelly will also express concern with the “recent growth in ‘Islanded’ data centres due to their potential to increase gas demand, jeopardise gas security and associated increased carbon emissions”.
‘Islanded’ data centre developments are those that are not connected to the electricity grid and are powered mainly by on-site fossil fuel generation.
The Government has stated that this is “not in line with national policy” and the CRU will tell the committee that it “understands that Gas Networks Ireland has paused processing islanded data centre applications in line with the Ministerial Direction”.
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Yesterday, they announced that we will have a pay a contribution towards gas storage. Absolute joke
@margiemurph: They’re buying some big boat to store gas and they are adding a levy to all bills to pay for it.
“Ireland was found to have one of the most dramatic gas price hikes in the European Union, with an increase of 73% in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period last year”
Irish Examiner Oct 2023.
Sooner people wake up to been ripped off the better.
@Peter Murray: should have allowed the gas storage to be built in Kerry with 600+jobs.
Oh my god, an article you can comment on. What’s happening to the journal lately. It’s like China or Russia with the censorship.
@Gemma Sexton: We were on a steady path towards controlled move to rentable energy when Russia invaded its neighbour. Why didn’t the Irish politicians that are friends of Russia stop Putin.
@thomas molloy: ….renewable energy…….
@thomas molloy: Libel laws.
@Áine G: Hardly.
There are many subject matters that have had comments closed, and deleted, where there has been no suspicion of defamation. Subjects such as the russian invasion of Ukraine, or Israel, or Covid related as examples.
@Peter Murray: sieg hiel Peter… Vere is the miccro film.. you drive a VW Beetle?
I reckon the best way to help out people who are struggling is to find a way to add some kind of new levy so people can be kicked more when they are down.
Article doesn’t state how long in arrears. Disingenuous piece. Looking at the relatively very few homes and businesses disconnected even proves it. Click bait
@Temp Stuff: How you can disgard those kind of figures as “click bait” is beyond me and any right thinking person. If that many are in arrears now in mild times, imagine what it will be like in April after a long winter.
@David Corrigan: article is skewed for a negative reaction. I’ve no doubt even the author has failed to pay a utility bill on time before
And The Cabbage Ryan wants to put another levy on peoples bills to pay for a LNG Tanker which has to be built yet
What a Micky mouse government
People can’t pay their bills never mind another levy
Let Gas Networks Ireland pay for it
Politicians should not have their expenses paid until this is under control, so they can feel the heat as well… Pun intended.
@Peter Murray: Perhaps if our elected representatives had to live on the same type of income as the least well off there would be some understanding of what their policies do.
“Group of Irish citizens allowed to leave Gaza today” So they wouldn’t allow them to leave before now as they wanted their release to coincide with the vote in the Dail today on a motion to sanction Israel for it’s flagrant dissmisal of international law. Very clever US/Israel/FF/FG.
Playing politics with the lives of children.
@Dissasociated Follower:
Well advised/coerced by their Hasbara office colleagues on Shelbourne Rd….the all along human sword tactics of the Zionazis will fail once the hostage famillies bring their righteous indignation to bear on butcher Bibi’s coalition of killing for the shillings!
@Peter Murray: And yet Hamas would not exist if the Palestinian people had not been driven off their land by – guess what – Israeli terrorism.
The Bord Gaid van is in my area every day disconnecting and reconnecting due to arrears.
Getting all the disconnecting done before the 1st of Dec cut-off.
While the heat (pardon the pun) has gone out of this issue, the fact remains we are still been screwed by the Energy Companies with no government action, or limits on what they want to charge the consumer
Instead of building a strategic port for the island that can be used for the storage of gas, the Greens said no. But are happy to buy a big boat to store same gas and be kept at sea, with the knowledge that some will be lost to evaporation due to the conditions and we have to then pay a levy to pay for this lunatic behaviour.
@James Reardon: And fuel to run the ship. It’s beyond a joke at this stage.
@James Reardon: A boat does seem an odd choice. Any shipping has a relatively short lifespan.
They start to reduce the unit charges one week and the next they are inventing a new bulls#?t charge to keep the bills for households as high as possible! No wonder so many people are in trouble with utility bills and the only solution those clowns in Dail Eireann come up with is to impose more taxes on people…
RTE get a bailout while the public get shafted, how about they redirect the substantially large sum of OUR money RTE will receive to help these struggling SMEs and individuals.
Data Centers need to be banned.
To claim these are, or will be, supplied by renewable energy is simply an accounting trick. They are actually supplied by fossil fuel power sources, no matter what the claim.
If any individual data center was not here, then the RE supposedly consumed by it would be available for the rest of us, and the equivalent amount of fossil fuel power would not be required.
Ergo, these use whatever fossil fuel is being generated up to the amount being generated before they begin to use RE.
The FFG way
Ffg besides maintenance what have they actually done in over 120 years of stacking the deck .
have your say