{"id":673380,"date":"2026-09-05T04:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/673380\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T04:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:42:23","slug":"sse-airtricity-to-hike-prices-by-close-to-10-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/673380\/","title":{"rendered":"SSE Airtricity to hike prices by close to 10% \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

SSE Airtricity<\/a> is to increase the unit rate of its electricity<\/a> by 9.4 per cent and gas by 11.6 per cent from early next month.<\/p>\n

It is also increasing its daily standing charge for electricity by 6.1 per cent but it is not increasing its gas standing charge. <\/p>\n

That means the typical electricity bill will go up by 8.9 per cent or \u20ac172 per year if based on average usage, according to the supplier. SSE\u2019s typical gas bill will go up by 9.3 per cent or almost \u20ac139 a year if based on average usage, according to the supplier. <\/p>\n

The price hikes will come into effect from October 5th and impact almost 300,000 customers who are on variable rates with SSE. Those on fixed rates won\u2019t be impacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis news isn\u2019t surprising, unfortunately,\u201d said Daragh Cassidy of bonkers.ie. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past few months, wholesale electricity and gas costs have shot up again, largely due to the continued conflict in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wholesale electricity costs for the past six months are up by about 30 per cent compared with the previous six-month period. And on top of this, fees for the management and upkeep of the electricity grid have increased too.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Distress\u2019 for elderly couple with big bills as Flogas fails to implement budget planOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd wholesale gas prices have almost doubled compared to this time last year,\u201d Cassidy said. <\/p>\n

He added that the hikes \u201cmay not seem exceptionally high, but they\u2019re coming on top of energy costs which are already at very high levels\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gas prices are already about 90 per cent higher than they were four or five years ago while electricity prices are about 70 per cent higher. \u201cSo any further hikes to energy costs, however moderate, will hit many households hard,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said there were no easy solutions to high energy prices in the short to medium term. \u201cWhile the ultimate goal is obviously to drastically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and natural gas, this will take well over a decade, maybe two or three. And while bringing more renewable energy on to the grid is the correct course of action, building a modern grid which can properly accommodate, transport, and then store this energy (for when the wind doesn\u2019t blow or the sun isn\u2019t shining) is difficult and expensive and will even add to bills in the short term.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Most of Ireland\u2019s big targets on housing, infrastructure and families are stuff of fictionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He added that households struggling with high energy costs have options. They can switch to a cheaper supplier, look at ways to use less energy around the home, and if they\u2019re on a smart tariff, they can move their energy to times of the day when it\u2019s less expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Government also has work to do,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cI would call on it to reduce the rate of VAT on energy bills further and to consider pausing another hike in the carbon tax.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SSE Airtricity is to increase the unit rate of its electricity by 9.4 per cent and gas by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,2190,18,35808,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,18612,7,8],"class_list":["post-673380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-cost-of-living","tag-eire","tag-energy-costs","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-sse-airtricity","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117216604503428515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}