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Prices and costs for residential electricity and gas are inclusive of all taxes and levies. This includes a reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9% from May 2022, and subsidies for residential electricity under the Electricity Costs Emergency Benefit Scheme (€400 in 2022 and €550 in 2023). Residential properties with very low energy consumption levels have been excluded from the analysis. See the Editor's Note and Background Notes for more information.
The median, or mid-point, annual residential electricity bill fell by 3% to €880 in 2023 (See Infographic, Figure 1, Table 1A, and Editor's Note).
The median annual residential bill for gas rose by 28% to €1,249 in 2023 (See Infographic, Figure 1, and Table 1B).
In 2023, 42% of households paid more than €1,000 for electricity. Fewer households paid more than €1,000 in electricity costs in 2023 compared with 2022 (44%) and 2021 (65%) (See Infographic, Figure 2, and Table 2C).
By contrast, 65% of household gas customers paid more than €1,000 in 2023. The proportion of customers paying more than €1,000 for gas increased significantly in 2023 compared with 2022 (48%) and 2021 (28%) (See Infographic, Figure 3, and Table 2D).
Of the households that paid between €750 and €1,000 for electricity in 2022, 19% moved to paying €1,000 or more in 2023 (See Table 2A).
Gas costs increased for individual households at each level of costs. Among households that paid between €750 and €1,000 for gas in 2022, 70% paid €1,000 or more in 2023 (See Table 2B).
The highest median residential electricity bill costs by county in 2023 were in Kildare (€1,020), Meath (€1,011), and Wicklow (€976), while the lowest were in Donegal (€726), Leitrim (€753), and Mayo (€799) (See Table 1A). Table 8 of the CSO's Domestic Building Energy Ratings release showed that 26% of Kildare dwellings with a BER certificate used electricity as their main space heating fuel, compared with 15% for Donegal.
Residential electricity prices are inclusive of all taxes and levies, including payments received under the Electricity Costs Emergency Benefit Scheme. For electricity customers, these payments amounted to €550 for the calendar year of 2023, subject to a low usage threshold for the final payment (See Editor's Note and Background Notes).
Government subsidies were introduced in Budget 2022 as a response to increases in energy prices and continued in Budget 2023 and Budget 2024.
In 2022, residential electricity customers, including pay as you go customers, received two payments of €200 each to offset their electricity bill costs, for a total of €400. In 2023, this continued, with two payments of €200 applied between January and June 2023, and one of €150 applied in December 2023, for a total of €550.
These payments were administered directly by electricity suppliers as part of the billing process. They have been included in the residential electricity prices used in this release, which were obtained from the SEAI.
There were no similar government subsidies for residential gas. VAT on both gas and electricity bills were temporarily reduced from 13.5% to 9% in May 2022. This lower rate of 9% applied through all of 2023. Prices used in this release are inclusive of taxes and levies.
A Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme (TBESS) was introduced to support businesses with increases in their electricity and natural gas bill costs in 2022 and 2023. The TBESS payments were administered by the Revenue Commissioners and paid outside of the utility billing system. Hence, they are not included in the prices used in this release.
The gas bills in this release do not include natural gas used by power plants. This is a significant exclusion, as power plants accounted for 65% of networked gas consumption in 2023. The electricity bills do not include meters for very large energy users. The reason for excluding these very high electricity and gas consumption customers is because the weighted prices provided by energy suppliers may not be appropriate to this very small group of customers. Please refer to the Background Notes for more information on the release methodology.
The median bill costs for electricity and gas are the mid-points of all annual bills after sorting them in bill cost order.
The median residential electricity bill fell by €29 (3%) to €880 in 2023, compared with €909 in 2022 and €1,268 in 2021 (See Figure 1 and Table 1A). The median residential bill for gas rose by €277 (28%) to €1,249 in 2023, compared with €972 in 2022 and €740 in 2021 (See Figure 1 and Table 1B).
| Electricity | Gas | |
| 2015 | 1095 | 746 |
| 2016 | 1030 | 702 |
| 2017 | 1051 | 670 |
| 2018 | 1109 | 782 |
| 2019 | 1040 | 752 |
| 2020 | 1111 | 760 |
| 2021 | 1268 | 740 |
| 2022 | 909 | 972 |
| 2023 | 880 | 1249 |
Households paying less than €1,000 for electricity in 2023 were 58% of the total and those paying less than €500 were 23%. The percentage of households paying less than €1,500 per year for electricity was 75% in 2023, compared with 79% in 2022 and 65% in 2021 (See Infographic, Figure 2 and Table 2C). Households paying less than €1,000 for gas in 2023 were 35% of the total, compared with 52% in 2022 and 72% in 2021. The percentage of households paying less than €1,500 per year for gas was 63% in 2023. This proportion had been 79% in 2022 and 92% in 2021 (See Infographic, Figure 3 and Table 2D).
| 2022 | 2023 | |
| 1 < 500 | 453.793 | 456.187 |
| 500 < 750 | 360.24 | 383.355 |
| 750 < 1,000 | 365.012 | 363.492 |
| 1,000 < 1,500 | 493.46 | 371.235 |
| 1,500 < 2,000 | 238.126 | 249.318 |
| 2,000 < 3,000 | 142.091 | 188.537 |
| 3,000 or more | 62.836 | 103.434 |
| 2022 | 2023 | |
| 1 < 500 | 107.287 | 76.992 |
| 500 < 750 | 113.269 | 68.769 |
| 750 < 1,000 | 126.4 | 88.533 |
| 1,000 < 1,500 | 181.602 | 189.225 |
| 1,500 < 2,000 | 87.058 | 121.941 |
| 2,000 < 3,000 | 43.378 | 93.185 |
| 3,000 or more | 12.977 | 33.326 |
Among non-residential electricity customers, 25% paid €10,000 or more in 2023. while 38% of non-residential gas customers paid €10,000 or more for gas in 2023 (See Table 3C and Table 3D).
Total bill costs for 2023 were higher than any other year in the period 2015-2023 for residential electricity (€2.6 billion), non-residential electricity (€3.9 billion), residential gas (€1 billion), and non-residential gas (€1 billion) (See Table 4A and 4B).
Prices for residential electricity and gas from July-December 2023 were higher than the same period of 2022 across all consumption bands (See Table 5A and Table 5C).
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (17 September 2024) released Trends in Metered Electricity and Gas Bills 2023.
Commenting on the release, Kevin Hunt, Statistician in the Climate and Energy Division, said: "This release combines weighted average prices for electricity and gas final consumption from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) (See Tables 5A, 5B, 5C, and 5D) with metered consumption from ESB Networks (ESBN) and Gas Networks Ireland (GNI). These combined files provide meter-level estimates of bill costs for 2015 to 2023. The Editor's Note below and Background Notes give more details on customer types, prices, allowances, and exclusions.
Annual Household Electricity and Gas Bill Costs
The median residential electricity bill fell by €29 (3%) to €880 in 2023, compared with bills of €909 in 2022 and €1,268 in 2021 (See Table 1A and Figure 1).
In contrast, the median residential bill for gas rose by €277 (28%) to €1,249 in 2023, compared with bills of €972 in 2022 and €740 in 2021 (See Table 1B and Figure 1).
Please refer to the Editor's Note and Background Notes for more details on how these costs were calculated.
County Level Analysis for Costs
The median, or mid-point, residential electricity bill in 2023 was lower in every county compared with 2022. The highest costs by county were in Kildare (€1,020), Meath (€1,011), and Wicklow (€976), while the lowest were in Donegal (€726), Leitrim (€753), and Mayo (€799) (See Table 1A).
The median residential gas bill in 2023 was higher in every county compared with 2022. Excluding counties with negligibly low numbers of gas meters (Kerry, Longford, Roscommon, and Wexford), the highest median residential gas bills were in Cavan (€1,423), Meath (€1,338), and Dublin (€1,311). The lowest were in Waterford (€1,014), Cork (€1,096), and Mayo (€1,102) (See Table 1B). The highest percentage increases in gas costs were in counties Clare (42%), Cork (37%), and Cavan (37%) (See Table 1B).
Households in which electricity is the main space heating fuel are likely to have higher electricity bills compared with those using gas or oil for heat. Similarly, households using gas for both heating and cooking are likely to have higher gas costs than those using it for cooking alone. The proportion of main space heating fuel type by household varies substantially by county. In Kildare, electricity is the main space heating fuel for 26% of dwellings with a BER certificate, compared with 15% in Donegal (See Table 8 of Domestic Building Energy Ratings Q2 2024).
Trends in Household Electricity and Bill Costs
In total, 58% of households paid under €1,000 for electricity in 2023, compared with 56% in 2022 and 35% in 2021 (See Figure 2 and Table 2C).
In general, households tended to pay the same or less for electricity in 2023 compared with 2022. For example, 81% of the households which had paid between €750 and €1,000 in 2022 continued to pay less than €1,000 in 2023, with 15% moving up to the next highest cost band of between €1,000 and €1,500 (See Table 2A).
For gas customers, in contrast, households paying under €1,000 were 35% of the total in 2023, compared with 52% in 2022 and 72% in 2021 (See Figure 3 and Table 2D).
There was a notable upward trend among residential gas costs in 2023 compared with 2022. Of those households paying from €750 to €1,000 for gas in 2022, for example, 59% saw their costs increase to between €1,000 and €1,500 in 2023, with a further 12% paying €1,500 or more (See Table 2B).
Non-Residential Electricity and Gas Bill Costs
Among non-residential electricity customers, 25% paid €10,000 or more in 2023 (See Table 3C). Of those businesses which paid €10,000 or more for electricity in 2022, 93% continued to pay more than €10,000 in 2023 (See Table 3A).
Similarly, 38% of non-residential gas customers paid €10,000 or more for gas in 2023 (See Table 3D). For businesses using gas, 97% paying more than €10,000 in 2022 continued to pay that amount in 2023 (See Table 3B)."