New guidance expands eligibility for this winter’s three €150 electricity credits

After complaints from people who missed out on the €150 credits from the government to help them pay their electricity bills this winter, the government has relaxed its rules.

Electricity prices shot up after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, driving massive profits for energy companies. While electricity suppliers have started to lower their prices now, they are still well above pre-war levels.

To help people pay their suddenly much larger electricity bills, the government brought in schemes to give people electricity credits in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Its most recent scheme, for the winter of 2023/24, was designed to exclude accounts using very little electricity.

This change meant some people who kept the heat low and were careful about turning lights off, or had very well-insulated homes, or had moved into homes that had previously been vacant or had only recently been built, did not get credits.

But this wasn’t the intention, according to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU).

“The Low Usage criteria set out in Government legislation is intended to address vacant properties, or secondary properties such as holiday homes,” a CRU spokesperson said.

A “clarification” was sent out by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications and the CRU in late January to this effect, according to a statement from electricity provider Pinergy issued 13 February.

“Where a customer confirms that the excluded MPRN [Meter Point Reference Number] is in fact their primary residence, their supplier may now issue the [credits] to that customer,” the Pinergy statement says.

In other words, even those with low usage should now be able to get the credits for their primary residence.

Raising the issue

In January, several TDs raised the issue in the Dáil of the people missing out on the credit because they had moved into a home that was empty for part of the evaluation period – and so fell below the usage threshold.

Green Party TD Patrick Costello asked his party colleague, Eamon Ryan, minister for the environment, whether he would amend the legislation “to include the removal of the exclusion of ‘low usage’ homes in cases whereby new tenants/owners move into a previously vacant unit”. Fine Gael TD Paul Kehoe asked a similar question.

People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Richard Boyd-Barrett, meanwhile, questioned the fairness of the very existence of the low-usage threshold.

He asked, “the reason people with low energy usage between July 2022 and June 2023 are being penalised by ineligibility for the electricity credit, as many of these people are on low incomes and are desperately in need of the credits”.

On 17 January, Ryan, the minister, answered all those questions together. The goal of the low-usage threshold was “to prevent the payment from being applied to vacant houses”, he said.

TDs continued to raise the issue. Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan asked the minister if the law could be changed, and so did his party colleague Robert Troy.

On 30 January, Ryan gave essentially the same response as he had earlier in the month.

A clarification

Around this time, in late January, Ryan’s department and the CRU issued what Pinergy called in its 13 February statement a “clarification”, “to state that the goal of the scheme was not to exclude households who are residing in their primary residence”.

This clarification should cover people who’ve moved into homes that had been vacant for part of the evaluation period, who apparently were already eligible for the credits – even if they weren’t getting them.

When evaluating whether a customer should get the electricity credits this winter, the ESB is supposed to look at how much electricity their account had used between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023, according to the legislation.

If their meter recorded less than 150kWh per quarter during that period – and they didn’t have solar panels or a wind turbine reducing their usage – then they’d be judged “low-usage” and excluded, it says.

But “For buildings that were energised after September 2022, there wouldn’t be consumption data available for all four quarters between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023,” a CRU spokesperson said by email on 19 January.

“In this case, customers with an active electricity account … should receive the credit(s),” she said.

The late January clarification also draws in people who lived in their home for the entire evaluation period but simply didn’t use a lot of electricity.

Credits for low-usage customers

The CRU provided this clarification to electricity suppliers “following initial queries and complaints received from customers who were not deemed eligible by their suppliers”, a CRU spokesperson said by email on 16 February.

Customers who didn’t get the credits but thought they should have had always been able to complain to their suppliers – and if they weren’t happy with the answer, then go to the CRU.

“The CRU is taking a common-sense approach to determining a customer’s eligibility for the credits,” the spokesperson said. If the CRU investigation proves a home is a customer’s primary residence, it will tell the supplier to pay the credit, they said.

In late January, “the CRU provided a clarification to suppliers on the approach the CRU was taking to its own complaint investigations as per the policy intention of the legislation to provide credit to a customer’s primary residence”.

“The CRU indicated to suppliers that they may also wish to take such an approach, where the supplier’s investigation establishes that the MPRN is the customer’s primary residence, to ensure customers could be supported as quickly as possible,” they said.

Among the many buildings serviced by electricity provider Pinergy is One Lime Street in the Dublin Docklands, where some residents said recently they hadn’t gotten the credit.

Now Pinergy is going back to its customers to make sure that if they can get the credits, they will, its 13 February statement said.

“We are in the process of contacting our customers that did not receive credits due to the low usage criteria to inform them of this clarification and asking them to make contact with Pinergy as their energy supplier, to declare the MPRN that is their primary residence,” they said.

“Energy credits will then be distributed to eligible customers,” the Pinergy spokesperson said.