Panda Power and Pinergy have today become the fifth and sixth energy suppliers to increase their prices in response to increased wholesale energy costs. Increases from both companies will come into effect from August 1st.
There was a double whammy of bad news for energy customers this morning, as both Panda Power and Pinergy announced price increases within minutes of each other, becoming the fifth and sixth energy suppliers to do so since the 1st of June.
What are the details of the increases?
Panda Power will be increasing its electricity standard unit rate by 5.9% and its gas standard unit rate by 5%.
For a typical customer consuming average amounts of energy annually, these increases equate roughly to a €48 increase to annual electricity bills and a €32 increase to annual gas bills.
This is the first increase in Panda Power’s electricity prices since it launched to market in June 2015, and it’s first gas price increase since launching its gas offering in February of this year.
Pinergy, a PAYG electricity supplier will be increasing its prices by 9.38%, an increase which translates to an extra €72 a year for average electricity consumers.
This is the second price increase from Pinergy in the last year. Back in December 2017, the supplier increased prices by 5.6%.
Why are Panda Power and Pinergy increasing prices?
Panda Power and Pinergy, similarly to the other energy suppliers who announced prices increases in June, have cited rising wholesale energy costs as the reason behind the price hikes.
Speaking about its increase, Panda Power Managing Director Brendan Traynor said “While we have done everything we can to offset the effect of market volatility on our customers, we have had to take this necessary action and reflect the market changes in our energy prices. These conditions are unfortunately outside of our control. We have seen market prices steadily increase over the past 12 months which we have not reflected in our prices until now.”
Enda Gunnell, CEO of Pinergy said: “We very much regret these price increases to our customers and have minimised any changes to our tariffs in order to limit the impact. Over the past year, we have been impacted by a sustained period of commodity price increases, in particular gas and oil. While we continuously work to achieve efficiencies, we are directly impacted by increased wholesale energy costs on global markets. Unfortunately, the business cannot absorb all of these price increases directly, which is why we are now having to pass on some of this pricing trend in the announcement today.”
He continued: “We would always urge energy customers to take a more proactive approach in managing and monitoring their energy usage through smart technology meters and deploying energy efficient technology such as LED lighting in order to achieve savings and become more energy efficient. Our experience to date is that many users of our smart technology can enjoy savings of over 20% through more efficient energy usage and waste reduction,”
Six increases since June 1st
Panda Power and Pinergy are the fifth and sixth energy suppliers to announce price increases since the beginning of June.
SSE Airtricity kicked off the trend and will increase its electricity prices by 6.4%, its gas prices by 12.3% and its dual fuel prices by 8.9%.
Electric Ireland will increase electricity prices by 6.2% and gas prices by 8%.
Flogas will increase its gas prices by 12.8%.
Finally, Energia will increase its electricity prices by 7.6%, its gas prices by 12.3% and its dual fuel prices by 9.6%.
SSE Airtricity’s increases will come into effect on July the 14th whereas all of the others will come into effect from the 1st of August.
There are four energy suppliers who have yet to announce price hikes; Bord Gáis Energy, Just Energy, PrePayPower.ie and BEenergy. It will be interesting to see if and when these players follow suit but we have our fingers crossed that they won’t!
How can I avoid the increases?
Right now it seems as if there’s nowhere to turn with so many increases coming left, right and centre. However, there are steps customers can take to avoid the hikes and maybe even save some money while they’re at it.
There are a total of 10 energy suppliers in the Irish market and every one of them is offering some sort of sign-up incentive or discount to switch. New customer discount rates usually last for a year (or the duration of a standard contract) meaning that you can switch suppliers again once your contract comes to an end to ensure you’re always getting the best rate.
Switching is super easy and only takes a few minutes to do using our price comparison calculator. Compare and switch now.
