Managing Utilities During COVID-19

Read Your Meter and Help Keep your Electricity Bill in Check. 

Your salon may be empty, but there are some essential utilities that you may not want to stop during the lockdown. Your electricity bill is a prime example of an essential utility that you may opt to continue to pay. During this period of salon closure, it is worth noting that a lot of electrical bills may be estimated. As a business owner, now is a really important time to try to conserve non-essential spending, thus making contact with your electricity provider and giving them monthly meter readings is vital.

Currently, some providers are not reading meters, therefore bills will be based on estimated readings unless you provide them with an accurate meter reading. 

Why it is this important? Your estimated bills are based on the expected average consumption of electrical units, if your salon is closed your average consumption should be a lot lower than the normal consumption of electrical units. Without an accurate meter reading, your energy provider won’t know the exact number of units used – and you may be billed the incorrect amount.

HABIC Advice

1. Read your electrical meter. Instructions on how to read you meter can be found HERE
2. Contact your energy provider to ensure they have the correct meter reading.
3. If you find yourself in financial difficulty, pro-actively engage with your energy provider.

We contacted ESB, their advice is as follows:

• ESB is acutely aware that many customers are facing new financial challenges as a result of COVID-19 and may need additional support. Our supply business, Electric Ireland, is doing its best to help people at this time, and is asking residential or business customers who are concerned about their ability to pay their bills on time to engage with them at an early stage so that workable and affordable payment solutions can be developed specific to individual circumstances. 
• To give customers peace of mind at this worrying time, Electric Ireland has also suspended disconnections for now and will continue to monitor the situation as the crisis unfolds. 
• Customers wishing to send in a meter reading (regardless of their electricity supplier) to ESB Networks can do so by:  Phone 1850 337 777 (021 2386444)  OR click https://www.esbnetworks.ie/existing-connection/meters-readings/submit-a-meter-reading  OR email: reading@esb.ie ; OR TEXT your reading to 087 960 9223 in the format: MPRN (space), Reading. 

Energy Providers in the Irish Market

A link to various energy providers can be found here: 

• ESB: https://www.esbnetworks.ie/
• SSE Airtricity: https://www.sseairtricity.com/ie/home/
• Electric Ireland: https://www.electricireland.ie/ 
• Energia: https://www.energia.ie/home 
• Prepay Power: https://www.prepaypower.ie/ 
• Bord Gais: https://www.bordgaisenergy.ie/
• Flogas: https://www.flogas.ie/ 
• Panda Power: https://www.pandapower.ie/
• Iberdrola: https://www.iberdrola.ie/

HABIC is working hard to keep our members updated on all COVID-19 developments from safety to financial. If there are any resources or information that you would like to receive, please comment below, or email HABIC at info@habic.ie.