Ok, first things first… if you’re an Energia customer, you just got a price cut today. This is good news because your bills will go down, you didn’t have to do anything to make it happen, and all Energia customers will benefit.
Energia has said that they are dropping electricity prices by 2% and gas prices by 2.5% which is about in line with what we’ve seen from other suppliers over the last few months.
Here's how Energia's price cuts will work
Energia’s standard electricity unit rate will go from 16.99 cent to 16.65 cent. This will save average customers a little over €20 per year.
For gas, Energia is cutting standard unit rates from 5.3 cent to 5.17 cent per unit. Again, this will save average households just over €20 per year when you include the taxes.
Whether you are on a discount deal with Energia, or you’ve been with them more than a year and your discounts have expired, you’ll still benefit from this price cut. That’s because discounts come off standard rates, and those standard rates are going down from today – so everybody gets a price cut.
"CHEEP" discounts for new customers
Energia hasn’t stopped with a price cut though. New customers can also take advantage new discounted tariffs that are launching today as well. This range of discounted deals will be known as “Cheep” and they are pretty good.
The best are for dual fuel customers. Energia is upping their top discounts to 20% for electricity and 17% for gas. What it means is an annual cost of €1,854 for an average household. This makes it the cheapest (Cheepest?) dual fuel deal in the market with savings of €320 over standard legacy rates, and €338 off Energia's own standard rates.
The Cheep dual fuel deal is also €54 per year cheaper than the SaveMe tariff it replaces. So a very good option for dual fuel customers.
New discounts for electricity only customers
Energia is introducing a new electricity deal today too. It’s also called “Cheep” and will offer customers an 18% discount. It comes in at an annual cost of €1,053 and is slightly cheaper than the SaveMe tariff it replaces.
And what about gas?
Energia is not including standalone gas in their “Cheep” range of tariffs, and have actually reduced the discount on their SmartChoice gas tariff from 15% to 13%. Funnily enough, the new gas deal is still cheaper than the one it replaces – but only just. There’s one single euro in the difference. So how can less of a discount do that? Well, it’s down to that cut in standard rates that we detailed above.
So what do we think?
Any cut in rates is a good thing, but it's not often that we see a supplier introduce a price cut for all customers, and then up the ante with better deals for new customers too.
bonkers.ie MD David Kerr had this to say: “Today’s announcement sees Energia join other suppliers in reducing standard rates for all customers which is to be welcomed. In addition, they have introduced a range of new discount tariffs which sees them continue to compete for new customers and follow their launch committment to always be competitive on price."
Of course you can always compare your electricity and gas prices on bonkers.ie, and switch suppliers right here too!
A note for high usage Energia NightSaver customers
Energia is making a change today that will affect higher consumption NightSaver electricity customers. If you use more than 1,583 kWh (about 80% more than national average) in a two-monthly billing period on an Energia NightSaver tariff you will be subject to a surcharge. It works like this:
Customers who use more than 949 daytime units and 633 night units in a two-monthly billing period will be charged a higher unit rate for all units consumed above these amounts.
The NightSaver standard day rate is 18.26 cent per kWh. Once 949 kWh have been used, customers will pay 20.73 cent for any units above that. It represents an surcharge of 13.5% on the extra units used.
The NightSaver standard night rate is 08.75 cent per kWh. Once 633 kWh have been used, customers will pay 11.18 cent for any units about that. It represnts a surcharge of 27.8% on the extra units used.
The Energia NightSaver surcharge works on a split of 60% consumption during the day and 40% consumption during the night with an annual usage of 9,458 kWh per year. It's a fairly high consumption, so most households should be able to avoid it, but larger consumption households should be aware that they may incur these extra charges.
