Last week two of the largest electricity suppliers in Northern Ireland, Electric Ireland and SSE Airtricity, announced they are raising electricity prices for domestic customers by 8% and 6.9% respectively from 01 October 2019. These increases come days after the announcement from Northern Ireland’s largest supplier, Power NI, that they were also implementing an increase of 6.1% for domestic customers. The price increases across the 3 businesses will impact 88.9% of domestic connections. In this blog, we investigate the contributing factors for the NI price increases.
Related thinking
Heat networks
Reallocating electricity policy costs to incentivise low carbon heating technologies
Funding the cost of decarbonising the power system has mainly been through the consumers' electricity bills. In fact, in 2020-21 these costs amounted to a whopping £10bn. But is this method of raising revenue for decarbonisation still fit for purpose when faced with the need to decarbonise the nation's heat?...
Regulation and policy
How will consumers take to Market-wide Half Hourly Settlement?
Ofgem published its decision to implement the move to Market-wide Half Hourly Settlement (MHHS) on 20 April. This confirms plans to move to new settlement arrangements over a four and a half year time period, with the Elexon-led Design Working Group’s Target Operating Model to be used as the blueprint. Meters...
Commercial and market outlook
Data centres predicted to become prosumers of electricity
In combination with Cornwall Insight and Bit Power, Host in Ireland published its Biannual report of Ireland’s Data Hosting Industry. The report highlights the importance of sustainability in Ireland’s digital transformation. The report confirmed the number of operational data centres in Ireland increased by 25 per cent over the past...
Regulation and policy
Calm before the storm? 2021 energy supplier compliance developments
The latest update to our Energy Supplier Compliance Portal went live on 4 May and includes changes to the compliance landscape during February to April 2021. While the previous quarter’s update reflected new principles resulting from Ofgem’s Supplier Licensing Review (SLR) and protections for prepayment meter customers facing self-disconnection, Q121...
Regulation and policy
Electricity transmission charging reform – overtaken by changing priorities?
Charging for the transmission network is never out of the development process for long. From major reviews, such as that initiated under Project Transmit in 2010, to significant reforms such as removing the triad benefit from distributed generation in 2018, and a host of smaller developments, change seems the only...
Announcement
BBC interview | Robert Buckley discusses Ofgem’s price cap
Robert Buckley spoke to Felicity Hannah on BBC Five Live’s Wake up to Money programme ahead of Ofgem’s announcement to increase the default price cap by £96 to £1,138. Robert explained that a combination of a rise in wholesale prices and policy costs for renewable electricity, as well as the inclusion of £23.69...
Regulation and policy
Ofgem “hands-on” in RIIO-2 as net zero route unfolds
During the next round of the RIIO price controls, Ofgem can be expected to take a more hands-on approach to outputs the networks are required to provide and the allowed revenues they can charge their users or consumers. This will have impacts for network development including the enabling of electric...
Commercial and market outlook
SEM articles of the year: All I want for Christmas is RESS-2
With COVID-19 dominating our everyday lives, we saw similar trends in our most popular articles for the year. Demand shifts were observed in domestic and industrial settings with working patterns shifting from offices to homes all around the country. It was also a landmark year for the renewables industry with...