€50 COMPO AFTER YEARS OF RIP-OFF ELECTRICITY BILLS

Households overcharged for decade to subsidise big business

- BY SHAUNA CORR

THE ESB has been overcharging people for more than a decade to subsidise big business and has now vowed to give all households a 50 refund.

In a statement, ESB Networks said the company identified the issue and has been engaging with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities.

It said: While the process and mechanism of the rebalancing is still to be determined with the CRU, ESB Networks anticipates that it will result in the reduction of a domestic electricity bill in the order of 50 in total”

CRU chairperson Aoife MacEvilly told the Oireachtas committee that in March of last year we decided, absolutely, that money will be paid back to domestic customers”.

The Large Energy User rebalancing subvention’ ran from 2010 to last year. It was designed to shift 50million of network tariffs onto residential energy users.