Tell me about it.... €450 worth of an electric/gas bill on Monday. Haven't even gotten fucking paid yet so I can look forward to my first pay of 2026 having a grand dent in it.
Only the Irish government would be dumb enough to have a country that is a total Island, where all our raw resources have to be imported and think its a good idea for all our electrical power plants and water supply be used on data centers. Then sell what little fossil fuels we have to foreign companies, and rather than spend the little we have left in wind energy, chose instead to go with more tech firms
There is definitely challenges also because of the force of storm waves but its certainly still being developed.
Im not sure of the cost-benefit vs wind farms in Ireland specifically but in either case there is lots of constant fluid movement around the Island that can be harnessed for essentially free energy.
In the longterm that will be the best solution. Burning anything for producing electricity is very inefficient and ultimately dumb.
not just saltwater, but debris, microplastics and dear glob the jellyfish. Apparently marine biologists are very concerned about rising jellyfish populations, most likely from the collapse in turtle populations. But also because the higher water temperatures caused by global warming has led to a breeding frenzy. These wave hydroplants are getting clogged to banaynays with jellys
Fair, SSE seem to be the highest at the minute. We moved from SSE at the end of contract in October, a week before they upped the rates. Went to EI who were 30% off, and while their rate has not changed, they reduced the discount to 24% in November. Might still be the best offer at the moment, but shop around.
Yes but if you own your house and don't intend on moving, after the initial investment is paid back it's pure savings.
I got my solar panels in 2021 for €9045 - the grant (at the time) of €2100, total outlay of €6945
Between electricity cost saved of €1818.59 (Note: I was not tracking against price increases and just used default app numbers so it's actually higher)
And Payment / Credit for electricity generated and sent to the grid of €2313.54
Total: €4132.13
Renaining: €2812.87
Meaning it's currently 59.5% paid off after 4 years, theoretically after 6-6.5 years they've paid for themselves (probably sooner as price increases happen regularly)
Again, the payback is probably higher because I didn't put in the actual value of electricity unit cost each year cause I'm an idiot!
After the 6~ year time frame is over, it's pure savings at that point.
Additionally, my mortgage rate came down because my energy rating went up. Which is leading to further savings of about ~€200 a year, so another €1,000 and IF I decided to sell the property, even if the prices came back to exactly what I paid for it, higher selling price.
Yes because it becomes part of the overall value of the house.
When I went to do the mortgage rate change, the value went up more than originally planned.
I'll say for example the "natural" value of the house went up 20k before the panels, when the valuer came out he missed them,
I pointed them out, gave him the amount of electricity they're rated to produce and he added another 12k to the value as we knew the grants would be lowered over the years and the cost of panels would likely rise as more people got them and businesses charged according to demand.
Edit: I think the average "value" increase for having solar panels is 3-5% and mine at the time would have been a 5% increase.
So a few things I should elaborate on.
I don't plan on being in my house forever, I hope to eventually move.
So I installed with plan in selling later on.
House value would increase by 5% chatting with local auctioneers.
Basically they stated that banks are offering better rates to higher BER houses so new buyers tend to aim for these. Houses with less work and ready to move into with high BER have a more of a battle to purchase it as a result. Easier to rationalise spending higher money on something which already has higher energy savings and less work to do to it. The 5% increase will more than cover the initial installation and I will earn a profit on it. This seems sensible in my opinion.
Secondly if I decide to live here for life, the comfort of low bi-monthly electricity bills is unbelievable. Plus I have an eddi diverter which means, I don't overthink the cost of heating water anymore. I consider this an added comfort and have not calculated the cost saving here.
Third the bank gave me a discount of .35% on my mortgage for the upgrade. This is unbelievable as it is small but stackable savings. I estimate I will save about 2000euros over 4 years additionally from this on top of everything else.
How long do solar panels last? I've heard a lot of people saying you basically need to replace them by the time they start paying for themselves, but I've kinda looked at that like skeptic insight tbh. Is there much maintainence involved?
Currently buying a C1 house and trying to figure out where to start with improvements or even if an seai loan might be worth it.
A long time. Mine are warrantied to have at least 80% of their original output after 30 years. Even then if you're still keeping them after 30 years, they'll still have most of their output, but less than originally. Very stable stuff.
I can't imagine you'd need to replace them unless you want "better" output, but would that output be worth it? (maybe if someone makes a massive breakthrough and the price isn't insane)
I mean, you shouldn't have to replace panels unless they're damaged? All you need is maybe a proper clean every 3-5 years if you have any particulate buildup E.g. Lychen that the rain won't wash off.
Not if installed to regulations and by professionals. Extreme weather is taken in to account by regulations and by installers when planning / installing.
This is weird as fuck. Why rates are dependent on the Ber rating of the house is beyond me. I'm not saying it's wright or wrong but it's strange.
What am I missing?
I don't know why it was brought in, maybe it's to incentivise people to upgrade their homes to be more energy efficient because we're struggling as a country with energy.
They would help to bridge the gap between climate goals and more efficient homes retain their value better than lower energy ratings which makes sense.
I've an A1 property right now, if that dropped to b3 (due to a reg change) and the market cooled off, it would be lower value, but higher value than something that was identical but with lower energy rating. So banks probably use it as part of their risk / value calcs.
Basically a tonne of energy efficiency, air tightness, lots of insulation in roof and walls, good quality windows, heat pumps and potentially solar panels ot mechanical ventilation system.
Ireland's methane power plants are around 60% efficient, and methane is slightly less than a third of the cost per unit energy for Irish retail consumers. So the margin for electricity producers just on the fuel itself, assuming they paid retail costs, which they don't, is 100%. 30c/kWh electricity is like you are being charged 20c/kWh for methane.
Obviously not. But methane also needs to be distributed so the comparison is already rolled into the price ratio. Gas networks are harder to maintain than electrical transmission, so it's reasonable to believe it comes out in the wash.
Is there anyone protesting on the streets, are the same political parties returned to government each time. Well then, looks like it doesn't bother us enough.
Gas/electricity provision should not be a profit-making industry. It's an essential service and it's beyond a joke that people are being so shafted by the current prices.
The Celtic Interconnector is meant to be complete this year, but probably won't be up and running until 2027/28.
It's meant to help bring prices down (amongst other things) but we all know it won't and instead the government will just award a bunch of approvals for data/ A.I centers instead that will gobble up the 700 MW line.
Distribution costs are higher due to the dispersed nature of the Irish population, with the "electrical network length per capita" figure being approximately four times the European average.
Total Network Length: As of 2024, the network operated by ESB Networks.pdf) includes nearly 157,000 km of overhead lines and 26,000 km of underground cables.
Customer Base: The network serves approximately 2.5 million customers.
Overhead vs. Underground: Overhead lines outnumber underground cables by a ratio of roughly 6 to 1.
European Comparison: The extensive length of the network relative to the population is a notable characteristic of the Irish grid, driven by the need to provide universal access to a highly rural and dispersed population.
Yep but any suggestion of trying to fix this and its cries of "why do you hate rural Ireland?" and "I've a right to build 10km from anywhere" and "we pay for electricity too"
They're likely going to get more expensive this year. Metal costs are way higher recently (silver, copper, aluminium all important for manufacturing) plus Chinese government is ending subsidies for solar manufacturers.
Solar manufacturers in China are not subsidied anymore. And no - solar panels are going cheaper still. With an advent of LiS cells, we are at 37€ /kWh of storage level. And it's still going lower. Energy at this moment should be basically free if anyone would be brave enough to do so.
Did you actually read that article at all? Or you just linked the first result from search engine? I did read it. So there was no subsidy, but vat reduction. That export vat reduction is phased out and VAT is coming back to 13%. It was 9%in 2024. However new manufacturing plants are being open. Moving to the new technology means closing lines for polysilicon, which increased its price by around 40%. So older tech panels are no more that profitable as manufacturers moving to more efficient ones (monocrystalline) tech. Newer tech panels won't see production cost increase and new processes make them cheaper.
So all this combined means increase of 1-2% per panel this year. As polycrystalline panels are used mostly where you dint have space limits, industrial scale installations will see increased prices moving from poly to mono.
That's all from that article. So in fact it supports what I wrote. Or is your article a nonsense as well?
Does it rely on massive government subsidies and punitive taxes on other energy sources. The market seems to be quite manipulated at present. All I know is energy poverty is increasing more than it has over the past thirty years.
No, not really how it works anymore. Wind and solar have their issues, but cost wouldn't be that. And if you take a look at the chart here, you can see that many European countries have much higher or comparable shares of electricity genereated by renewables, but lower costs than us.
Gas is the main way we generate electricity in Ireland - when the price of it spikes up (as it has recently), the price of electricity goes down. Weaning ourselves off that (particularly with offshore wind) will improve things.
Well offshore has been cancelled so that's not happening any time soon. Gas prices are down. We have increased our share of renewables and are told at times we generate the majority of our power with renewables. Yet the costs continue to soar. It seems that it's government policy to price people into energy and fuel poverty. That seems to be the plan, drive people into penury. Why not spend the future fund on free domestic solar across the country. That's got to be good for everybody and the carbon footprint of the country. Why not
If we are sourcing electricity for data centers and ai they should be expected to pay rates that make things cheaper for everyone else, not the other way around
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Tell me about it.... €450 worth of an electric/gas bill on Monday. Haven't even gotten fucking paid yet so I can look forward to my first pay of 2026 having a grand dent in it.
Robbing bastards.
Only the Irish government would be dumb enough to have a country that is a total Island, where all our raw resources have to be imported and think its a good idea for all our electrical power plants and water supply be used on data centers. Then sell what little fossil fuels we have to foreign companies, and rather than spend the little we have left in wind energy, chose instead to go with more tech firms
In general its bizarre that on a stormy atlantic island instead of using wind or hydro energy you import fossil fuels to burn from abroard..
Ah yes, hydro from our many natural waterfalls.
There is wave hydro as well.. any type of water movement can be used
Granted I haven't looked into it for a while but last I read wave hydro was a dead end. Salt water just fucks everything.
There is definitely challenges also because of the force of storm waves but its certainly still being developed. Im not sure of the cost-benefit vs wind farms in Ireland specifically but in either case there is lots of constant fluid movement around the Island that can be harnessed for essentially free energy.
In the longterm that will be the best solution. Burning anything for producing electricity is very inefficient and ultimately dumb.
not just saltwater, but debris, microplastics and dear glob the jellyfish. Apparently marine biologists are very concerned about rising jellyfish populations, most likely from the collapse in turtle populations. But also because the higher water temperatures caused by global warming has led to a breeding frenzy. These wave hydroplants are getting clogged to banaynays with jellys
Standard questions:
Did you submit meter readings to make sure you got charged for what you actually used?
How many units of gas and elec was on the bill?
What's your discount?
It’s sickening
Good thing you're on the right subreddit to help you learn to not live paycheque to paycheque.
I'm not breaking into savings to pay a bill.
Don't tell me you're going to do something like take out a loan to pay it when you have the cash available.
It'll just come out of my eventual month's pay.
Wow, thats high. Are you in contract?
Ends on Jan 15th.... will be leaving. It's SSE Airtricity.
Fair, SSE seem to be the highest at the minute. We moved from SSE at the end of contract in October, a week before they upped the rates. Went to EI who were 30% off, and while their rate has not changed, they reduced the discount to 24% in November. Might still be the best offer at the moment, but shop around.
I was skeptical at first but after getting 10 solar panels installed on my house I have no regrets.
Inflation in electricity is just a killer.
Currently paying 500euros instead of 1200euros a year.
Savings are stacking up over time.
But the solar panels also cost money
Yes but if you own your house and don't intend on moving, after the initial investment is paid back it's pure savings.
I got my solar panels in 2021 for €9045 - the grant (at the time) of €2100, total outlay of €6945
Between electricity cost saved of €1818.59 (Note: I was not tracking against price increases and just used default app numbers so it's actually higher)
And Payment / Credit for electricity generated and sent to the grid of €2313.54
Total: €4132.13 Renaining: €2812.87
Meaning it's currently 59.5% paid off after 4 years, theoretically after 6-6.5 years they've paid for themselves (probably sooner as price increases happen regularly)
Again, the payback is probably higher because I didn't put in the actual value of electricity unit cost each year cause I'm an idiot!
After the 6~ year time frame is over, it's pure savings at that point.
Additionally, my mortgage rate came down because my energy rating went up. Which is leading to further savings of about ~€200 a year, so another €1,000 and IF I decided to sell the property, even if the prices came back to exactly what I paid for it, higher selling price.
Thanks for the analysis. Though I have to ask, are you claiming that you would recover your expenses in the solar panels, should you sell the house?
Yes because it becomes part of the overall value of the house.
When I went to do the mortgage rate change, the value went up more than originally planned.
I'll say for example the "natural" value of the house went up 20k before the panels, when the valuer came out he missed them,
I pointed them out, gave him the amount of electricity they're rated to produce and he added another 12k to the value as we knew the grants would be lowered over the years and the cost of panels would likely rise as more people got them and businesses charged according to demand.
Edit: I think the average "value" increase for having solar panels is 3-5% and mine at the time would have been a 5% increase.
So a few things I should elaborate on.
I don't plan on being in my house forever, I hope to eventually move.
So I installed with plan in selling later on.
House value would increase by 5% chatting with local auctioneers.
Basically they stated that banks are offering better rates to higher BER houses so new buyers tend to aim for these. Houses with less work and ready to move into with high BER have a more of a battle to purchase it as a result. Easier to rationalise spending higher money on something which already has higher energy savings and less work to do to it. The 5% increase will more than cover the initial installation and I will earn a profit on it. This seems sensible in my opinion.
Secondly if I decide to live here for life, the comfort of low bi-monthly electricity bills is unbelievable. Plus I have an eddi diverter which means, I don't overthink the cost of heating water anymore. I consider this an added comfort and have not calculated the cost saving here.
Third the bank gave me a discount of .35% on my mortgage for the upgrade. This is unbelievable as it is small but stackable savings. I estimate I will save about 2000euros over 4 years additionally from this on top of everything else.
How long do solar panels last? I've heard a lot of people saying you basically need to replace them by the time they start paying for themselves, but I've kinda looked at that like skeptic insight tbh. Is there much maintainence involved?
Currently buying a C1 house and trying to figure out where to start with improvements or even if an seai loan might be worth it.
A long time. Mine are warrantied to have at least 80% of their original output after 30 years. Even then if you're still keeping them after 30 years, they'll still have most of their output, but less than originally. Very stable stuff.
Actually I remember I got a similar warranty.
Even in the worst case and lets say mine only last 15 years,
I have calculated that I pay off mine in 7 years after initial installation and then it is simply profit after this point.
I can't imagine you'd need to replace them unless you want "better" output, but would that output be worth it? (maybe if someone makes a massive breakthrough and the price isn't insane)
I mean, you shouldn't have to replace panels unless they're damaged? All you need is maybe a proper clean every 3-5 years if you have any particulate buildup E.g. Lychen that the rain won't wash off.
I think the general consensus is 25 years.
can the recent big storms rip them off your roof?
Not if installed to regulations and by professionals. Extreme weather is taken in to account by regulations and by installers when planning / installing.
I've only seen solar panels being ripped off by poor installations and I've not seen it in Ireland.
The storms recently have blown neighbours fences down but the panels seem grand.
This is weird as fuck. Why rates are dependent on the Ber rating of the house is beyond me. I'm not saying it's wright or wrong but it's strange. What am I missing?
I don't know why it was brought in, maybe it's to incentivise people to upgrade their homes to be more energy efficient because we're struggling as a country with energy.
They would help to bridge the gap between climate goals and more efficient homes retain their value better than lower energy ratings which makes sense.
I've an A1 property right now, if that dropped to b3 (due to a reg change) and the market cooled off, it would be lower value, but higher value than something that was identical but with lower energy rating. So banks probably use it as part of their risk / value calcs.
I'm A2, the only way to get to A1 is solar panels?
It's all based on the regs.
Basically a tonne of energy efficiency, air tightness, lots of insulation in roof and walls, good quality windows, heat pumps and potentially solar panels ot mechanical ventilation system.
I pay 230 a month so about 2760 a year
Ireland's methane power plants are around 60% efficient, and methane is slightly less than a third of the cost per unit energy for Irish retail consumers. So the margin for electricity producers just on the fuel itself, assuming they paid retail costs, which they don't, is 100%. 30c/kWh electricity is like you are being charged 20c/kWh for methane.
Massive rip.
network charges? imperfections? Capacity? Have you priced this out?
Obviously not. But methane also needs to be distributed so the comparison is already rolled into the price ratio. Gas networks are harder to maintain than electrical transmission, so it's reasonable to believe it comes out in the wash.
where have you got this priced out? A gas network is vastly cheaper to run per kWh.
Unfortunately not. Electrical network is much more expensive both to build and to operate.
Dont forget some schmuck in the dail needs their pockets lined... Oh oh and some other schmuck in the esb
…Except they don’t, unless you have some information you’re not sharing?
who?
Is there anyone protesting on the streets, are the same political parties returned to government each time. Well then, looks like it doesn't bother us enough.
Gas/electricity provision should not be a profit-making industry. It's an essential service and it's beyond a joke that people are being so shafted by the current prices.
The Celtic Interconnector is meant to be complete this year, but probably won't be up and running until 2027/28.
It's meant to help bring prices down (amongst other things) but we all know it won't and instead the government will just award a bunch of approvals for data/ A.I centers instead that will gobble up the 700 MW line.
Been saying this all along and unfortunately I will probably be right.
We get near 40% of our energy from wind. When did wind become so expensive?
A huge amount of which is taxes and, levies. The government like high prices because they make more money that way.
VAT on elec was *cut* from 13.5% to 9%.
Blame govt.
Distribution costs are higher due to the dispersed nature of the Irish population, with the "electrical network length per capita" figure being approximately four times the European average.
Yep but any suggestion of trying to fix this and its cries of "why do you hate rural Ireland?" and "I've a right to build 10km from anywhere" and "we pay for electricity too"
Plus we have to pay extra so the grid can be upgraded for data centres. Also extra for green taxes, can't have enough green taxes.
Solar panels and batteries are so cheap now. It's even feesible to charge the battery on night tarrif and use the electricity during the day...
They're likely going to get more expensive this year. Metal costs are way higher recently (silver, copper, aluminium all important for manufacturing) plus Chinese government is ending subsidies for solar manufacturers.
Solar manufacturers in China are not subsidied anymore. And no - solar panels are going cheaper still. With an advent of LiS cells, we are at 37€ /kWh of storage level. And it's still going lower. Energy at this moment should be basically free if anyone would be brave enough to do so.
Absolute nonsense. Solar panel costs are widely expected to increase in 2026: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/09/china-to-abolish-solar-export-tax-rebates-from-april/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/is-the-solar-price-plunge-over-pv-panel-costs-tipped-to-edge-up-in-2026/
Did you actually read that article at all? Or you just linked the first result from search engine? I did read it. So there was no subsidy, but vat reduction. That export vat reduction is phased out and VAT is coming back to 13%. It was 9%in 2024. However new manufacturing plants are being open. Moving to the new technology means closing lines for polysilicon, which increased its price by around 40%. So older tech panels are no more that profitable as manufacturers moving to more efficient ones (monocrystalline) tech. Newer tech panels won't see production cost increase and new processes make them cheaper.
So all this combined means increase of 1-2% per panel this year. As polycrystalline panels are used mostly where you dint have space limits, industrial scale installations will see increased prices moving from poly to mono.
That's all from that article. So in fact it supports what I wrote. Or is your article a nonsense as well?
I pay almost 5 grand a year, so yeah i'd believe it
Our electric network is about 1.5 times the EU average. Double (or more) many of the Western European countries. Must have an impact.
The renewables are working out great
Cheapest stuff on the network at the moment. What energy source would you prefer them replaced with?
Does it rely on massive government subsidies and punitive taxes on other energy sources. The market seems to be quite manipulated at present. All I know is energy poverty is increasing more than it has over the past thirty years.
No, not really how it works anymore. Wind and solar have their issues, but cost wouldn't be that. And if you take a look at the chart here, you can see that many European countries have much higher or comparable shares of electricity genereated by renewables, but lower costs than us.
Gas is the main way we generate electricity in Ireland - when the price of it spikes up (as it has recently), the price of electricity goes down. Weaning ourselves off that (particularly with offshore wind) will improve things.
Well offshore has been cancelled so that's not happening any time soon. Gas prices are down. We have increased our share of renewables and are told at times we generate the majority of our power with renewables. Yet the costs continue to soar. It seems that it's government policy to price people into energy and fuel poverty. That seems to be the plan, drive people into penury. Why not spend the future fund on free domestic solar across the country. That's got to be good for everybody and the carbon footprint of the country. Why not
Yeah they do? Imagine instead of using the local wind you want to pay to keep importing fossil fuels from abroard to burn here?
I just rang to be able to afford to pay my power bill without having to cut back on food. I didn't have to do that ten years ago. I'm an awful person
Sure but that is all government policy, not the method of energy generation.
What provider are you with? I switched to a full wind based company and their rates are way cheaper than the main energy companies.
So it's just the government trying to starve and impoverish me eh. Good to know
Surprise surprise
Standing charge in itself is astronomical
Shock horror
If we are sourcing electricity for data centers and ai they should be expected to pay rates that make things cheaper for everyone else, not the other way around