Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland’s taxation of fuel and electricity is governed by European Union law as set out in Directive 2003/96/EC, commonly known as the Energy Tax Directive (ETD). The ETD provisions relating to taxation of electricity are transposed into national legislation in Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Finance Act 2008 (as amended). This legislation provides for the application of an excise duty, in the form of Electricity Tax, to electricity supplied to consumers in the State. The rate of Electricity Tax is currently €1.00 per megawatt hour which is one of the lowest excise duty rates on electricity across the EU.

Electricity Tax law provides for full relief for electricity supplied for certain uses and for electricity generated from renewable sources. The amounts of electricity on which relief was claimed for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 are set out in the table below. The amounts are given in terawatt hours (TWh) where one TWh equals a million megawatt hours.

In addition to the reliefs outlined above, which operate in the first instance by way of remission, Finance Act 2008 provides for relief from Electricity Tax for electricity used for chemical reduction, electrolytic and metallurgical processes, produced on board a boat or other craft and used under diplomatic arrangements in the State. These reliefs are operated by way of repayment. I am advised by Revenue that data on repayment claims in respect of these reliefs is not readily available.