MORE THAN 13,000 residential customers have signed up to Bord Gáis Energy since Wednesday when the company announced plans to permanently undercut ESB prices.
The new customers bring to 28,000 the number of residential electricity customers now signed up to Bord Gáis Energy following a successful pilot programme among members of the Irish Farmers’ Association last August.
A spokeswoman for Bord Gáis confirmed yesterday that the offer would be extended to residential customers in Northern Ireland within a matter of months when the company hopes to be the first all-Ireland electricity company in the residential market.
Bord Gáis Energy is the retail arm of Bord Gáis, which started to supply electricity to commercial customers in the South in 2001, and claims about 8 per cent of that market.
The new strategy is to guarantee residential customers a 10 per cent discount on ESB prices for the first year, moving to about 5 per cent after that. Customers who either pay by direct debit or use natural gas will be offered a discount of 12 per cent. Those who are both natural gas customers and who pay by direct debit will be offered a discount of 14 per cent.
The spokeswoman said the customer base is expected to expand to about 500,000 by the end of the year. The first of Bord Gáis generating plants, a 445 MW combined-cycle gas turbine power plant at Whitegate, Co Cork, is expected to be fully on line by May 2010.
The company also has interests in wind energy.
In Northern Ireland, a subsidiary, BGE, is licensed to supply gas to 10 towns. BGE’s distribution and supply business, Firmus Energy, is in the process of extending the network to these towns.
Bord Gáis is also building a pipeline from Gormanston, Co Meath, to Belfast, and from Belfast to Derry.
The company was established as Bord Gáis Éireann in 1976, and now has more than 600,000 gas customers and a turnover in 2007 of €1,215 million.
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