Prices of Fuel in Ireland

Prices of Electricity Gas and Oil in Ireland

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Prices of all fuels - gas electricity and oil have been rising at a fast pace in recent years - in Ireland and all over the world.
Since moving to Ireland 2 years ago I have noticed the rising cost of heating - and I have done a comparison with UK prices (Feb 2006) to see if Irish prices are much more expensive. Overall - prices are fairly similar. The higher rate of VAT in Ireland (13.5%) compared to the UK doesn't help - but generally prices are slightly higher in Ireland - but not by a massive amount.

I used the Sustainable Energy Ireland web site for the Irish fuel prices and I used ukpower.co.uk for the UK prices. The UK market is much more competitive than Ireland - they have several energy suppliers in the UK. Here in Ireland there is still only one supplier of domestic Electricity (ESB) and one mains gas supplier (Bord Gais) - both state operated. There is supposed to be deregulation - and one electricity supplier - Airtricity - did start offering supply at a slightly lower price - but they are looking like they are pulling out of the domestic electricity supply market. Mains Gas is only available in cities like Dublin, Cork Limerick and Galway. Oil is one of the major methods of heating outside the cities and solid fuels like turf/peat and coal still play an important part too.

Electricity cost in Ireland per Kwh - (including standing charges etc) is 13.85c including VAT. In the UK there are lots of rates - but the average rate is around 8p per kwH which is equivalent to about 12c - or about 14% cheaper.

Heating oil prices in Ireland are around the 59c per litre which works out at is 5.35c per kwH. The UK price of heating oil is around 34p a litre or 50c - a saving of about 18%.

Briquettes of turf are €3 a "bale" which works out at 4.48c per kwH
Standard Coal is €257 a Tonne or 3c per kwH
Bulk L.P.G. per Litre is 0.59c or 7.23c per kwH
Bottled Propane gas works out at 12.01c per kwh