Summary – we pay highest unit price for electricity of the countries listed, gas one of the highest, energy subsidy quite high on a per capita basis (ignore the chart for subsidy as % of GDP as it’s not a good measure of anything in Ireland).
The big issue now is how much longer we will be paying around 45c per kWh, all that forward buying at high prices by the energy companies must be nearing its end, time to start annoying our elected representatives about sustained high prices.
While the current electricity prices are unsustainable it’s likely that Irish electricity prices will always remind high compared to other countries. This is due to the size of our grid. Very few countries our size operate their own grid. Most countries have integrated fully with neighboring countries and this reduces costs due to economy of scale. The Irish grid is one of the smallest in the world with only small isolated islands having smaller grids
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Summary – we pay highest unit price for electricity of the countries listed, gas one of the highest, energy subsidy quite high on a per capita basis (ignore the chart for subsidy as % of GDP as it’s not a good measure of anything in Ireland).
The big issue now is how much longer we will be paying around 45c per kWh, all that forward buying at high prices by the energy companies must be nearing its end, time to start annoying our elected representatives about sustained high prices.
While the current electricity prices are unsustainable it’s likely that Irish electricity prices will always remind high compared to other countries. This is due to the size of our grid. Very few countries our size operate their own grid. Most countries have integrated fully with neighboring countries and this reduces costs due to economy of scale. The Irish grid is one of the smallest in the world with only small isolated islands having smaller grids