The company is crediting all domestic customers in the Republic of Ireland with a €35 household credit
SSE Airtricity has today announced it will credit all domestic customer accounts in the Republic of Ireland with a household credit, as the company follows through on its commitment to forgo profits. SSE Airtricity became the first energy supplier to announce last year that it would give up profits in favour of supporting its customers through the cost-of-living crisis.
The newly announced €35 credit will be automatically applied to over 247,000 customers’ accounts from Thursday, 27 April and customers do not need to contact the company to avail of the credit.
In addition to giving over €8.6 million in profits back to customers, SSE Airtricity previously established the largest customer support fund of any energy supplier on the island of Ireland, up to the value of €25 million, including:
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A price promise that held energy costs at June 2022 levels until the end of winter for financially vulnerable customers
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€1 million discretionary fund to provide direct support to customers in difficulty
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Delivering home energy upgrades for up to 600 vulnerable households, at no cost to the customer, to improve energy efficient and heat retention in homes
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€1 million donation to St Vincent de Paul (SVP) to support households in need of financial assistance, regardless of who their supplier is
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€2.5 million donation to EnergyCloud Ireland supporting up to 10,000 homes experiencing fuel poverty to benefit from surplus renewable energy that will provide free tanks of hot water at no cost to the customer.
Nikki Flanders, Managing Director of SSE Energy Customer Solutions said:
“At SSE we are acutely aware of the impact of the ongoing cost of living and energy crises and how they have impacted families across Ireland. Supporting our customers has been a key focus for us throughout the crisis and, as a responsible business, we believe that not making a profit in this crisis and giving back to our customers was absolutely the right thing to do. We are fully committed to supporting our customers and, in addition to the €25m in support that we rolled out over the last year, these household credits are a tangible demonstration of that.
“We’ve recently seen reductions in wholesale market prices however, they remain high compared to historic levels. Like most suppliers we buy wholesale energy in advance to protect customers from short-term wholesale price shocks, like those we saw last year. The time it takes for wholesale market prices to feed through to customer bills depends on how far in advance we have bought energy. As we have done before, we remain committed to reducing our prices as soon as it is possible to do so.
“The €35 we are giving back today represents all of the profit we made as an energy supplier returned on customers’ bills; this means we have provided energy to customers during this difficult time ‘at cost’.
“Any customer who is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their energy costs should contact us in confidence and we will do our best to support them.”
Bill-Pay Customers: All domestic household customers of SSE Airtricity in ROI are eligible for the credit and the funds will automatically be credited directly into their accounts. This is in addition to any Government support that customers have already received. The credits will appear on the next bill as ‘SSE Support Credit’.
Pre-Pay-Meter (PPM) Customers: For PPM customers a credit of €35 has been added to their electricity or gas Pay as You Go account. This is in addition to any Government support already received. Note: If a customer has a Pay as You Go meter for both gas and electricity this credit has been applied to the electricity meter. This credit will be collected on the next customer top after 26 April. For this collection to be successful, the top up must be a minimum of €10. Once €10 top up is inserted onto the meter after this date the additional SSE Support Credit will be applied to the meter.
Article Published: 27/04/2023