Latest quarterly and annual transparency report on NI’s retail energy market published

Today the Utility Regulator publishes its latest Quarterly Transparency Report (QTR) for Quarter 2 (April to June) 2018 alongside the Annual Transparency Report (ATR) for 2017.

We publish retail  Transparency Reports on an annual and quarterly basis. The reports provide a range of information about the electricity and gas energy supply markets in Northern Ireland. The QTR and ATR presents data collected by the UR as part of the Retail Energy Market Monitoring (REMM) framework. REMM requires network companies and suppliers to submit data on a range of indicators to enhance UR transparency around market behaviours and regulatory compliance.  We use the information outlined in the report to review the progress and impact of supply competition; build knowledge for regulatory decisions; comply with EU Third Package mandatory requirements on market monitoring; allow other interested stakeholders to understand more readily the activity within our energy markets; and to help promote the interests of consumers.

The pricing data in both reports is sourced from Eurostat and individual supplier’s submissions under the REMM framework. The most recent pricing data (semester 2 July – December 2017) illustrates the following:

• NI domestic electricity prices continue to rank amongst the lowest in Europe at 14.2 p/kWh and are considerably lower than the Republic of Ireland (21.0 p/kWh), the EU median (17.8p/kWh) and the UK (16.5 p/kWh).
• The domestic gas prices in NI are amongst the lowest in Europe at 3.98 p/kWh. This is less than RoI at 5.78 p/kWh and the rest of the UK at 4.27 p/kWh.
• For large I&C customers, prices are now equal to those in RoI and are lower than in the UK overall.

The 2017 ATR merges the relevant quarterly information for the calendar year from the Quarterly Transparency Reports (QTRs) and is therefore the summation of Quarter 1 through to Quarter 4 for 2017. 

Any comments or queries in relation to this paper should be made to:

Copies of all documents can be made available in large print, Braille, audio cassette and a variety of relevant minority languages if required.