Results 201-220 of 4,733 for speaker:Jennifer Whitmore
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: What I am seeing at the moment is companies putting up their prices by significant amounts - €200 or €250 on average per year - and are actually blaming infrastructure costs for those prices. I will read from Energia's website. It said it was putting up its prices on 9 October. It said that it worked to minimise the impact on customers and that these price changes are...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Energia spoke about regulatory-approved non-energy charges so this has nothing to do with the wholesale market. This is purely the charges that it has to take on board because of the CRU decision. I find it offensive that Energia is actually trying to sell its price increases to customers by essentially blaming improvements in the grid and network security. It is blatantly obvious that...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: I have read what is on the Energia website. Does that concern CRU and will it immediately raise that with Energia because I have serious concerns about what it is stating?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: I ask the CRU to do that urgently, come back to me or the committee and let us know. Any of the other companies I have looked at have not been as blatant - this is regulatory and they are saying it is about wholesale prices and have added the other things up. This would appear to just focus on the charges the CRU is putting on, so I ask it to look into that urgently.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: The ones I have are July. The number is 301,000. That is what is in the Oireachtas-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: So the CRU does not have any more recent ones. In the context of the increasing prices, I would have thought that it would have been continually reviewing maybe even on a monthly basis to see exactly how many households are in arrears.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: So the CRU does not know-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: I find it concerning that the CRU has come before a committee of politicians where energy prices are the topic of discussion and cannot tell me exactly how many homes are to date in arrears, either electricity or gas. It is almost October, every household in the country is facing enormous price hikes and it is unlikely we will see credits. If the CRU could find those figures, it would be great.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: In any market, the more demand there is, the higher the price. We have seen an increase in data centre demand from 5% in 2015 to 22% now, and going to 30%. Has the CRU ever done any analysis on the impact of data centre demand on prices across the board? That is my first question. The second concerns how much data centres pay for their electricity. The standard rate is roughly 34 cent...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Okay.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Yes, but I am looking at the per unit cost.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: The total amount they paid for electricity was-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Mr. Mulligan does not think increased demand in the electricity market will push up electricity prices. Is that his contention?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Okay.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Given that we have seen such an increase in demand from data centres, why have our electricity prices not gone down?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Okay.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Just on those last points, the PR6 does not set aside any money for any further growth in data centres. It is only dealing with the existing data centres and those that have been approved. Is that correct?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Has it specified how much in that €18 billion is due to data centres?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: But have they actually specified, of the €18 billion-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (24 Sep 2025)
Jennifer Whitmore: Yes. I think 7% of data centres is the distribution load. It could be €1.5 billion for data centres.