Sir, – It is disappointing to learn that Irish consumers pay 79 per cent more for their electricity than the European average (“Is there any hope of cheaper energy for Irish homes this winter?”, Pricewatch, August 28th). The article goes on to quote various suppliers, who blame the slow unwinding of long-term contracts that shielded consumers from the extreme gas wholesale prices of recent times.
Wind energy supplies around 40 per cent of Ireland’s electricity.
Surely the fairly low and steady price of this wind-generated electricity should mitigate the effect of volatile gas prices? – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN FOX,
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Professor Emeritus,
Queen’s University,
Belfast.
Sir, – Neither the Government nor regulator seem to have remarked on the tragic coincidence that all the electricity retail companies seem to have chosen the same catastrophic “hedging” policy.
I would have thought that if there is competition in the market – the raison d’être for having all these energy retailers – the financial consequences of such bad corporate decisions would fall on the shareholders rather than the customers!
But of course there isn’t any actual competition in the Irish electricity market, only the appearance of competition. The breaking up of the ESB monopoly and the introduction of all the new retailers only meant another layer of shareholders, directors, and employees that have to be paid for by the Irish electricity consumer. Instead of real competition, all they brought for the consumer was a multiplicity of increasingly opaque and confusing “energy plans” whose interpretation and evaluation requires a crystal ball or hours in front of a computer screen.
We would have been far better off with the old monopoly and a regulator with teeth. – Yours, etc,
PETER MURRAY,
Carrigaline,
Co Cork.