> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://rebelnews.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Why Are Electricity Prices High? - URL: https://rebelnews.ghost.io/why-are-electricity-prices-high/ - Published: 2026-09-17T06:42:02.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-01T07:53:30.000Z - Author: John Dean - Tags: Features, News, #Migrated-1790841191722, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-01 07:53 On August 4th this year, RTE reported that 322,298 households are in arrears on their electricity bills. This represents 14% of all domestic customers, and is the highest level on record. This is yet another indicator of the hardships people are facing in the ongoing cost of living crisis. The significant number of people in arrears on their bills shouldn't surprise anyone. Irish electricity prices are consistently among the highest in Europe – 24% higher than the EU average in the most recent published data. On the same day, the *Irish Times* reported that Paddy Hayes, chief executive officer of ESB, is to get a €91,000 pay rise, to bring his pay to €410,000 per year. Of course, Paddy's huge pay rise isn't solely responsible for our huge electricity bills, but it is connected. Paddy Hayes is just one chief executive at one company involved in providing electricity in the 26 counties. Altogether, from electricity generation, to supply and retail, there are 16 different companies involved. Each of these companies has its own suite of executives, all on big money. Then there are the financiers, owners and shareholders, all demanding a cut of the profits from the money we pay for our electricity. ### Gas Prices And in case the opportunity to make such profits would not be enough of an incentive for these companies to invest, the system is regulated in ways to help guarantee the profits. For example, we utilise various energy sources to generate electricity – wind, solar, gas, biofuel, etc. – and they each have different costs. Gas is currently the most expensive source of energy we use, but even though it accounts for less than half of our total electricity generation, during periods of peak demand it is the gas price which is used to set how much we pay for all sources of energy. This is to ensure that none of the companies generating electricity lose out on potential profits as demand and prices for the different sources fluctuate. Yes, it is just as contorted and absurd as it sounds. This is how the Irish electricity market has been designed to operate. A mess of different companies, needlessly duplicating services and each one extracting profits from a market which has been artificially installed in order to guarantee they make money, rather than having a system which guarantees cost-effective, sustainable provision of electricity. It doesn't need to be this way. Up until the 1990s, the ESB was the sole operator; generating, supplying and charging for electricity as a state-owned company on a not-for-profit basis. Then the Irish government, following directives set out by the European Union, broke up the functions of the ESB, introduced the artificial market and brought in the private, for-profit companies we have today. They claimed this would reduce prices but it did the opposite. From 1994 to 2014, the period during which the market system was introduced, average consumer electricity prices in Ireland increased by 267%. ### Fossil Fuels As well as driving up our electricity bills, the market system has impeded our transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Building renewable energy generation (wind turbines and solar farms, for example) requires large, up-front investment, to a level that the for-profit companies have been unwilling to undertake. So the government has had to massively subsidise the construction of privately owned and run renewable energy infrastructure. This has meant a slow and overly costly adoption of renewables, with over half of our electricity supply today still coming from fossil fuels. While the transition to renewable energy is an essential step in combating climate change, we also must move away from fossil fuels in order to secure our energy supply. We have seen how the acceleration of imperial conflict, colonial aggression and banditry between the United States, Israel, the European Union, Britain, Russia and China has caused immense suffering for the millions of innocents who are targeted in these conflicts. In addition, crude oil and natural gas fields have become openly contested resources, with the U.S. currently bullying the E.U. into only purchasing fuel supplies that are U.S. controlled. This is pushing up the prices we pay and even threatening outright disruption of supply. In this new chapter of savage inter-imperial competition, it is simply no longer possible to maintain an Irish energy system that relies on fossil fuels. Alongside the market driven dysfunction in our electricity supply we now have additional pressures on the system, as the government has facilitated a rapid proliferation of data centres in Ireland. Data centres now account for just under a quarter of all electricity demand in the state. Their constant, high electricity consumption means we enter periods of peak demand much more often, which increases the price everyone pays. In addition, the strain they are putting on the system has also directly led to increased standing charges for all other users, in order to fund the grid upgrades needed to keep up with this added demand. Yet despite the significant burden that data centres are putting on the grid and our electricity bills, they still only pay roughly half the price per unit of electricity that domestic customers pay. ### Solutions Examining the problems which have been outlined here, some simple and effective solutions present themselves. Rather than continue with the failed market system which has driven up our electricity bills and impeded our transition to renewables, we should renationalise the system and return it to a not-for-profit model. Instead of allowing the rampant expansion of data centres to continue to max out the grid and increase prices, we should introduce strict democratic control over their development and operation, and we should make the multinational corporations who own them pay for all the costs which they have so far offloaded onto Irish society. Let's be clear, the government do not want to enact such changes. They have proven time and again that their primary concern is ensuring corporate profits – not meeting the needs of ordinary people, not ending the cost of living crisis or achieving our climate targets. So they won't change course now just because we ask them. We need to put real pressure on the government to act. The water charges movement showed the power of mass mobilisations to achieve this. We need to get active in our communities and workplaces to help build around these demands. The Affordable Ireland campaign have called a national protest on September 19th, meeting at 1pm at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin. We can start by building to make this protest as big as possible, to send a message to the government ahead of this year's budget: We have had enough! We want an energy system that prioritises people's needs over corporate profits.