Gas Market Opening
The introduction of competition into the energy industry in Ireland is transforming how the industry operates. The most significant outcome of market opening is the introduction of a system of competing licensed suppliers.
The initial stages of Market Opening took place in the Irish natural gas market in 1995, when a gas consumption based threshold was established to distinguish between end users that were eligible to transport their own gas and those that were not. This was initially restricted to very large consumers of natural gas.
Since then, the Irish gas market has been undergoing a steady evolution as
this eligibility threshold has been gradually reduced. While previous rounds
of market opening impacted a small group of high volume customers (approx. 250
customers), over 17,000 industrial and commercial customers became eligible to
choose their natural gas supplier in July 2004. This phase of market opening
meet Ireland's obligations under the EU Directive 2003/55/EC.
Full market opening took place on July 1st 2007 enabling over 500,000
domestic customers to be able to choose their natural gas supplier.
A complete list of all natural gas suppliers licensed by the Commission for Energy Regulation is available on the CER website. Click here to view the licenced gas supplier listing.
