Cheapest electricity in Ireland

The cheapest electricity in Ireland right now is SSE Airtricity’s 1 Year Fixed Electricity V6 at an estimated €1,295 for year 1 — a fixed 24.63c/kWh unit rate rather than a percentage discount. Energia’s Smart Data plan is next at €1,382, but it needs a smart meter and load you can shift away from the 17:00–19:00 peak. Every figure on this page is an Estimated Annual Bill at the CRU typical usage of 4,200 kWh, urban standing charges, with the PSO levy and 9% VAT included — verified on each supplier’s own site this week.

This ranking orders all nine Irish suppliers by their cheapest verified year-1 urban electricity EAB. All nine sell electricity and all nine had at least one verified year-1 figure this week; if a supplier had none, it would sort last with a dash rather than a guessed number. Prepay specialists are ranked on the same basis, which is why Prepay Power (€1,983) and Pinergy (€2,052) sit at the bottom — pay-as-you-go rates simply cost more per kWh.

One warning before the table: year 1 is not the whole story. Most of these prices are 12-month new-customer deals that revert to a much dearer standard rate. The cheapest supplier after month 12 is Community Power at €1,544 — fifth in year 1, first in year 2, because it has no teaser and no cliff. The year 1 vs year 2 guide covers the mechanics; the year-2 table below shows the reshuffle.

How do we rank the cheapest electricity in Ireland?

The criterion is simple and stated up front: suppliers are ordered by the cheapest year-1 urban Estimated Annual Bill we could verify on their own website this week, at the CRU typical household usage of 4,200 kWh. Each EAB adds up the discounted unit rate for the first 12 months, the urban (DG1) standing charge, the PSO levy and 9% VAT. Welcome bonuses and one-off credits are noted but not subtracted — a €120 sign-up credit is real money, but it is not a rate.

Two levies matter here, and both are already inside every figure on this page. The PSO levy is set by the CRU and is identical on every supplier: €1.46 per month ex VAT (about €19.10 a year including VAT) until 30 September 2026, falling to €0.51 per month ex VAT (about €6.67 a year) from 1 October 2026. You cannot switch it away, and a supplier quoting bills without it is flattering itself by about €19. VAT on residential electricity is 9%, extended by Budget 2026 to 31 December 2030. Carbon tax is a gas-bill line, not an electricity one — if you also burn gas, see cheapest gas in Ireland.

Where a supplier’s cheapest plan sits on a specific meter type, we say so — a smart-only price is useless if your home is still on a 24-hour meter. And where a figure was not verifiable this week (Flogas’s smart year-2 rate, Community Power’s smart time-of-use EAB, the wholesale-linked dynamic plans), the cell shows a dash. We never fill a blank with a guess.

What does the cheapest electricity cost in year 1?

Here are all nine suppliers, ordered by their cheapest verified year-1 urban electricity EAB at 4,200 kWh. The gap between first and last is €757 a year — the widest spread in any Irish utility market we cover.

^* A dash means the figure was not verified on the supplier’s own site this week — Flogas does not publish a standard smart rate card we could price year 2 from, and Prepay Power’s electricity exit-fee terms were not confirmable, so we print neither. Exit fees shown are per fuel, for the specific plan listed.

The same year-1 bills as bars — the scale of the prepay premium is easier to see than to read:

Two footnotes on the leaders. SSE’s V6 is the only fixed-rate plan in the table — the 24.63c/kWh unit rate and a lower fixed standing charge cannot move for 12 months, which is worth something in a market where Electric Ireland raised electricity 8% mid-2026 and Pinergy has a 7.6% rise landing on 14 September 2026. The price of that certainty is a €100 exit fee, double the usual €50. Energia’s €1,382 assumes your usage falls the way the CRU profile does across its 16.21c night, 29.49c day and 33.12c peak rates — an evening-heavy household will land higher. Full context in the SSE Airtricity review and Energia review.

Who is cheapest after month 12?

Re-rank the same nine suppliers on what they charge once the new-customer discount dies, and the podium is unrecognisable. Community Power — mid-table in year 1 — is first, because it never had a discount to withdraw: every customer pays the same variable rate, and it advertises no exit fee. SSE, the year-1 winner, drops to seventh. This is the cheapest-year-1-≠-cheapest-supplier point in one table:

^† Pinergy’s cheapest year-2 figure is its NightSaver rate card, a different meter from the smart new-customer offer, so the two columns are not the same plan; its 24-hour standard is €2,220. Community Power’s €1,544 is its day-and-night plan and needs a NightSaver-configured meter — its 24-hour rate is €1,684, which would still rank first on that meter type.

This is also why the teaser-% trap catches so many people: the headline percentage is applied to each supplier’s own standard rate, not to the market. Energia’s 30% off lands on a 42.65c standard unit rate — deep discount, high anchor. A “30% off” badge from one supplier can cost more than “16% off” from another, which is why this page ranks euro EABs and never percentages. Set a month-11 reminder either way — the year 1 vs year 2 guide shows how to read the discount line on your bill, and how to switch takes about ten minutes when the time comes.

Does a cheap unit rate beat a low standing charge?

Only if you use enough electricity. Every Irish bill is two prices: a unit rate (cent per kWh, which scales with what you use) and a standing charge (a fixed daily fee you pay even at 0 kWh — it keeps your connection alive and funds ESB Networks). At the CRU’s 4,200 kWh, a €300-class annual standing charge is diluted across a lot of units and the unit rate dominates. In a 2,000 kWh apartment, the same standing charge is a much fatter slice of the bill, and a plan with a slightly dearer unit rate but a lean standing charge can win outright.

Watch for two versions of the trap. First, most new-customer percentages discount units only — the standing charge usually rides along at full price, so the effective discount on your total bill is smaller than the badge, and smaller again the less you use. Second, the dynamic wholesale-linked plans make the pattern extreme: Bord Gáis’s Smart Dynamic carries a €331.96 urban standing charge and Yuno’s Standard Dynamic €397.39 — fine for a high-usage EV home playing the half-hourly market, punishing for a low-usage one.

• Under roughly 2,000–2,500 kWh a year (check your bill, not a guess): weight the standing charge heavily — our best energy for low usage ranking re-runs the sums at a stated low-usage figure for exactly this case.
• Around the 4,200 kWh typical figure: this page’s EABs already blend both prices correctly — use the tables as printed.
• Well above typical (EV, heat pump, electric showers): the unit rate is nearly everything — see the best EV tariff ranking before defaulting to a 24-hour plan.

The one number that never varies by supplier is the PSO levy — same euro amount for every domestic customer regardless of usage — so ignore it when comparing and remember it drops by roughly €12 a year from 1 October 2026.

24-hour, NightSaver or smart: which meter is cheapest?

Six of the nine suppliers put their cheapest electricity price on a smart tariff — the discounts are deeper because smart plans are what suppliers want to sell in 2026. But a smart EAB at the CRU profile hides the spread between night and peak rates, and an evening-heavy home can do worse on a “cheaper” smart plan than on boring 24-hour. Here are the verified smart-tier figures, dashes where a rate card could not be priced this week:

Read the structure column before the euro column. The flat-rate smart plans (Energia Smart 24 Hour, Electric Ireland Home Electric+) behave exactly like a 24-hour meter — no peak to dodge, a genuinely safe swap. The day/night/peak plans reward homes that can push washing, charging and immersion past 19:00 or before 17:00; a family cooking dinner on Bord Gáis’s 54.11c undiscounted peak will not see the brochure number. Community Power publishes its smart rates but we could not verify a full-year EAB for the profile this week, so it shows dashes — its structure (21.24c nights, 39.84c peak) is on the table so you can judge the shape.

NightSaver (the legacy day/night meter, night window 23:00–08:00) still earns its keep in two places in our data: Community Power’s day-and-night plan at €1,544 — the cheapest no-cliff figure on this page — and Pinergy’s PAYG NightSaver at €2,094. If your storage heating or EV genuinely runs overnight, the dedicated best NightSaver electricity ranking works out when night-heavy beats everything here. And remember a smart meter is hardware, not a tariff — until you sign a smart plan, a 24-hour price list is what applies.

How much more does rural electricity cost?

Every EAB above uses the urban (DG1) standing charge. Rural (DG2) connections pay a higher standing charge to cover longer network runs, so the same plan prints a bigger annual bill — by €30 to €135 a year in this week’s verified figures. The ranking order barely moves, but the euro gap is worth knowing before you compare against a neighbour in town:

Where a supplier’s cheapest plan has no verified rural figure (Electric Ireland’s smart plan, Bord Gáis’s smart plan, Flogas), the row above shows their cheapest plan that does carry rural pricing, or a dash. Note the smallest rural premiums in the table are Pinergy’s €30 and Community Power’s €46, and the largest is Prepay Power’s €135 — on prepay, the dearer rural standing charge is drained from your top-ups day by day. Your DG group is decided by your connection, not your supplier; it is printed on your bill next to the MPRN, and switching supplier never changes it.

Whoever you land on, the move itself is free of drama: the new supplier handles everything with your MPRN and a meter reading, supply never cuts, and it typically completes in two to four weeks — the full walk-through is in how to switch energy supplier. If gas is on the same shopping trip, run the dual fuel ranking and this page side by side before assuming one bill is cheaper than two.

Keep reading

• Best energy in Ireland: the flagship supplier ranking.
• How to switch energy supplier: MPRN, GPRN, cooling-off — supply never cuts.
• Year 1 vs year 2 energy prices: the discount cliff every ranking here prices in.
• Find your energy: 30-second matcher.

About the author

Conor Ryan

Energy Switching Analyst

Conor Ryan has tracked Irish gas and electricity prices, tariffs and switching since 2019. He builds matched.ie’s energy comparison tools and tests how smart meters and time-of-use plans affect household bills.

7+ years analysing Irish energy marketsCertified in Energy Efficiency (SEAI) and Electricity SupplyFocus on SSE Airtricity, Electric Ireland, Energia and Bord GáisBased in Limerick, covers domestic and small-business tariffs