Electricity customers to get €89 rebate next year due to a reduction in PSO levy

Electricity customers will receive an €89 reimbursement on their bills next year due to a reduction in the Public Service Obligation (PSO) levy.

The PSO levy is a subsidy charged or credited to all electricity customers in Ireland. It is to significantly reduce from October 1st this year until 30th September 2023. The finalised levy will result in a reimbursement of €89.10 for domestic customers and €311.51 for small commercial customers.

Compared to last year, this calculation represents an annual saving of €140.76 and €475.05 for domestic and small commercial customers, respectively.

This was “the first time since the commencement of the scheme that a negative PSO of this magnitude has been calculated,” the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) said in a statement on Friday.

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The levy has dropped from €263.7 million being raised in 2021/2022 to an expected minus of €491.25 million in 2022/2023. This represents a total decrease of €754.95 million.

The negative levy for this year was due to the design of the new renewable electricity support scheme and “unprecedented and sustained high levels of wholesale electricity prices,” the regulator said.

The CRU and relevant stakeholders are now working to ensure that billing and invoice arrangements can be put in place “to provide an enduring solution that will facilitate payment of the PSO levy to all electricity customers.”

In the interim, as of October 1st, the CRU is setting the PSO levy to zero, with “the commitment to implement an enduring mechanism to enable payments to customers as soon as possible”.

Aoife MacEvilly, chairwoman of the CRU said the decrease in the PSO levy was “a positive, however, its inverse relationship with wholesale fuel costs means that customers will have already seen price increases by suppliers over the last number of months.”

“We would encourage customers to renegotiate with their supplier or switch to a new provider where they could save over €300,” she said.