Families face paying around €16 a year more for natural gas in a shake-up of network charges, regulators confirmed.

The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) says an increase in transmission tariffs will add around €16 a year or 1.4 per cent to household bills.

Transmission tariffs cover the cost of transport natural gas on the Irish network. The regulator says in a paper published on Thursday that these costs, including the expense of moving gas from Britain to Ireland, have risen.

The Corrib field off the Mayo coast provides around 30 per cent of the natural gas that Ireland consumes, while the country imports the balance through a pipeline running from Scotland.