Panda Power and Pinergy to increase gas, electricity prices

Panda Power and Pinergy are the latest power providers to announce price increases.

From the start of August, Panda Power will be raise its standard electricity unit rate by 5.9 per cent and its gas unit rate by 5 per cent, an increase of almost €80 on a typical dual fuel bill.

Panda Power managing director Brendan Traynor said the increases were due to the rising cost of wholesale energy globally.

“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,” he said.

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“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,” he said.

Pinergy is to increase its electricity prices by 9.38 per cent, adding €71.76 onto the average annual electricity bill.

Enda Gunnell, chief executive of Pinergy, said the company “very much regret” the price increases.

“Over the past year, we have been impacted by a sustained period of commodity price increases, in particular gas and oil,” he said.

Eoin Clarke, managing director of price aggregator service Switcher, said the increases bring the number of energy suppliers who have raised their prices to six.

“There are only 10 energy suppliers in the market, and it’s likely we’ll see all of the remaining four announce similar hikes, too.”

Mr Clarke said the average dual fuel bill for customers on standard tariffs stands at about €1,800 per year.

“Anyone who hasn’t switched to a new energy supplier in the last year is on what’s known as a standard tariff, which means there are huge savings to be made by switching,” he said.

Switcher.ie launched in 2013, with the aim of offering consumers free, independent and impartial price comparison and switching services for gas, electricity, home broadband and digital television.

Last week Electric Ireland announced it will increase residential electricity prices by 6.2 per cent and residential gas prices by 8 per cent from August 1st.

SSE Airtricity announced it was hiking electricity and gas prices by 6.3 per cent and 12.3 per cent respectively at the beginning of June.

The latter two companies blamed the hikes on the increasing costs of importing oil and gas into Ireland.