County Armagh families will face with a whopping 5.6 per cent increase in one of their main household bills in six weeks time.
Power NI are hiking up the cost of their service, with the rise to come into effect on October 1.
The firm supplies around 60 per cent of homes across Northern Ireland.
Families across Northern Ireland are waking up to a household bill shock today as Power NI announces a 5.6 per cent price hike.
Stephen McCully, Managing Director of Power NI, said: “So much is dependant upon world fuel costs, which are outside our control and which have an effect on the price we pay for wholesale electricity.
“We have not increased our prices since 2013, so it is particularly disappointing for us that we have to do so now. However, as we were able to cut our prices over the last four years, a typical Power NI bill will still be roughly £80 less than it was in 2013.
“Unfortunately we cannot avoid this increase, but what we can do, is encourage our customers to take up one of our discount offers, which may help offset it.”
Jenny Pyper, Utility Regulator Chief Executive agreed that the price hike is beyond their control.
We carry out extensive scrutiny of Power NI’s costs to ensure that any change to their tariff is justified. Domestic electricity prices in Northern Ireland have not increased in four years, but unfortunately, due to rises in wholesale energy costs, this increase is unavoidable.
“After two price decreases in 2015 and 2016, we signalled last year that we expected the unprecedented period of low global wholesale energy costs to end, with the likelihood that consumer prices would increase. Since the last price decrease in April 2016, forward wholesale costs have risen by around 11%.
“Even after this tariff increase, Northern Ireland will continue to have amongst the lowest domestic electricity prices in the UK and RoI. Power NI’s average annual domestic bill will be around 22% cheaper than the GB average annual bill and around 30% cheaper than the ROI average annual bill.”
Power NI’s most popular SME business and farm tariffs will also see a similar increase.
