The ESB has been overcharging people for more than a decade to subsidise big business – and all households will get a €50 refund.
In a statement, ESB Networks said the company identified the issue and has been engaging with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. It said: “While the process and mechanism of the rebalancing is still to be determined with the CRU, ESB Networks anticipates that it will result in the reduction of a domestic electricity bill in the order of €50 in total.”
CRU chairperson Aoife MacEvilly told the Oireachtas committee that “in March of last year we decided, absolutely, that money will be paid back to domestic customers”. The “Large Energy User rebalancing subvention” ran from 2010 to last year. It was designed to shift €50million of network tariffs onto residential energy users.
Read more: Overcharged ESB customers will get their money back, regulator vows
The committee was told householders were charged more than they should have been under the scheme as ESB Networks didn’t cap the subvention at €50million a year as instructed. Ms MacEvilly told the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action: “Domestic bills were being charged more than we had directed.” She said larger energy users had benefited from this.
Ms MacEvilly continued: “The only question now is final reconciliation and how we will reverse that.” Sinn Fein senator Lynn Boylan asked what the total cost to domestic customers had been.
Ms MacEvilly didn’t provide a figure but said the decision was taken as “large companies were leaving Ireland” during the financial crash. Customers were not made aware of the scheme. Senator Boylan slammed the CRU’s lack of oversight of the subsidy following the Oireachtas committee hearing.
She said: “The CRU is supposed to be an independent body with a mission to protect the public interest and to ensure safe, secure sustainable energy at a reasonable cost, yet it appears they failed to carry out any distributional impact of this measure, and how it would have affected people struggling to pay bills. What is even more damning is that it was not until 12 years later, when this measure was being unwound, that they noticed ESB networks had implemented the measure in a manner that meant it was more than the €50million per annum.”
Senator Boylan added: “It is also shocking that they could not give me an exact figure of how much domestic households have subsidised large energy users over the last 12 years. The households that paid at least half a billion euro want answers, but the CRU turned up without those answers today.”
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore also hit out at the CRU’s lack of oversight. She asked Ms MacEvilly: “In the event ESB took your direction and misapplied it, is there a penalty for that? That’s quite a large administrative error.
Read more: Exact dates households will be paid their €200 energy credits in the New Year
The CRU’s chair said: “We will look at this.” LEU has now ended with CRU saying last year it would save domestic customers €40 a year. ESB Networks and the Department for Environment, Climate and Communications have been contacted for comment.
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