Seán McCárthaigh
The country’s largest energy supplier, Electric Ireland, breached conditions of its licences by overcharging 48,000 electricity gas customers around €1.1 million as well as issuing delayed bills to another 25,000 customers, according to the industry regulator.
The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) said Electric Ireland customers, as well as some former customers, had been overcharged by an average of €23 over a 12-month period up to August 2023.
All customers who were overcharged have been refunded, while those overcharged by more than €40 also received some compensation.
Electric Ireland said all former customers should be refunded by the end of October, while it would make a charitable donation in lieu of any refunds that cannot be made.
The problem arose from inaccurate bills which had resulted from incorrect calculations of discount rates.
The regulator said it had determined that the company had failed to issue accurate bills on a regular basis as required under its Customer Charter and Code of Practice for Customer Billing and Disconnection.
It also found that Electric Ireland was unaware for two months that it was late in issuing bills to some microgeneration customers.
The CRU said it would monitor the company to ensure that it continues to conform to all the conditions and requirements of its licences.
It acknowledged that Electric Ireland had already undertaken some remedial actions as well as conducting an internal review.
The CRU said once completed it would seek written confirmation that all affected customers had been refunded.
The regulator said the overcharging arose after household electricity and gas customers who were on a high discount plan moved to a lower rate after their contract expired.
However, only the lower discount rate was applied in bills that covered the contract expiry date instead of two different rates over the relevant periods.
The CRU said the overcharging arose from a “business process error”.
It said there was an incorrect assumption about discount rates by Electric Ireland which was due to “a lack of a clear understanding across the business that changes were required to adapt the existing product to make it fit for the products concerned.”
The company claimed the root cause of the problem was process failures rather than any inherent defects in its billing system.
The CRU said Electric Ireland had applied bill blocks while it was acting to solve the problem which had meant the issuing of some bills was delayed.
The company has asked the regulator to consider that the delay in issuing bills was a technical breach, while there was a “relatively low level of customer harm.”
The CRU accepted that there was no deliberate breach by Electric Ireland and that the company had self-reported both incidents and co-operated with its inquiry.
However, it noted that it was not the first instance of delayed billing by Electric Ireland that it had to examine.
