Shop in Mayo landed with a €4,200 electricity bill
A shop in Mayo has been landed with a bill for €4,200, a local TD has revealed.
Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh said the impact of the five-fold increase in energy prices over the past year is having a ferocious impact on small businesses.
The Erris-based representative elaborated: "One of our local shops has been landed with a €4,200 electricity bill.
"This is despite its operators doing everything possible to reduce it, for example, switching off fridges and lights and taking every measure they can just to stay in business.
"The nearest shop to that one is 15 miles away.
"Another supermarket has seen its bills increase from €3,000 to €9,000.
"I am highlighting this matter because a recently-produced national energy security framework estimates that electricity costs will have increased by between 45% and 60% above 2021 levels later this year.
"That would mean a €700 increase per household."
Deputy Conway-Walsh said the government is not doing enough to address the crisis.
"We are sleepwalking towards a winter where people will really struggle.
"We have no gas storage in this State, which is hard to believe.
"We have underinvested in our electricity grid and we have an electricity pricing system that allows gas to set the price of all electricity, despite the fact that almost half the electricity generated here comes from wind.
"I would like to know why are we paying more for wind-generated electricity? In the past year, I have raised the need to examine the EU-prescribed system for pricing electricity with the Minister of State, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Taoiseach.
" We need to reform the system as we enter an era of even higher prices.
"Even the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the market system no longer works and we must reform and adapt it to the new realities.
"Spain and Portugal have already introduced a price cap on gas for power generation to try to address this problem."