Changes to our public charging prices in Ireland

ESB has today announced that it is increasing its prices for its electric vehicle (EV) public charging network, with effect from Thursday, 5 May 2022. The increase is driven by the unprecedented and ongoing increases in energy costs over the past 12 months.

• There will be an increase on transactions across all of ESB’s payment plans when drivers charge their EV using the ESB public charging network in Ireland. The new pricing will come into effect on Thursday 5th May.
• Charging in Northern Ireland will continue to be free to use in the short term while we continue our comprehensive network upgrade programme.

What are the new prices?
The new charging rates are:

Prices for those on Fleet plans 5/10/15/20 will also change as per below:

• Standard (€0.33/kWh)
• Fast (€0.39/kWh)
• High power (€0.42/kWh)

Having received driver feedback on the overstay fee in a recent customer survey, ESB is increasing the overstay fee to €8 after 45 minutes on fast and high power chargers and a new overstay fee of €8 on standard chargers will apply after 10 hours on standard chargers.

Separately, ESB is working on its IT systems to explore per interval overstay fees which was identified by drivers as a preferential approach. ESB will communicate any further changes to the overstay fee with customers in advance.

Why are the prices increasing?

Unfortunately, the wholesale cost of electricity in Ireland, as well as in Europe, has significantly soared to an unprecedented level over the past year. This substantial increase in our operational costs means we are unable to continue to provide our service to you without having to increase the charging rates on our network.

Despite significant price increases in the wholesale market over the last 12 months, ESB has not increased its prices since it introduced pay for use on the public charging network in October 2019. Up until then the public charging network was free to use for the previous 10 years.

What does it mean for drivers?

We understand that this is a difficult time with prices being increased across heating, diesel, petrol, electricity, gas and other everyday products and services. ESB has done everything it can to keep our costs as low as possible to offer drivers the best value possible.

In terms of a real-life scenario, drivers can expect the following:

Most drivers do most of their charging at home. With this in mind, a return trip from Dublin to Galway (400km) charging 340kms with a home charger and topping up the remaining 60km using an ESB fast charger on a PAYG plan, will cost €10.36.

The same journey using ESB fast chargers to power an EV’s full journey on a PAYG plan will cost €26.67.

An equivalent diesel car will cost €37.34 for the same trip.

Depending on whether a PAYG driver is charging using a standard, fast or high power charger, savings versus diesel can range from 24-38%. This increases to savings of up to 75% using a combination of home and public charging (85%/15% split).

Do drivers need to do anything?

If you are already signed up to use ESB’s public charging network, you do not need to do anything – the new prices will be displayed on the ecar connect app and you can continue to charge as normal.

If you are already signed up but wish to change your price plan, please contact us via our details below.

If you have not signed up to an ESB PAYG or Membership plan, we encourage you to do so here.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about our new prices, we are here to help 24/7 via phone or you can contact us via email:
E: ecars@esb.ie
T: + 35312583799

Update 12th April: ESB is aware of Government discussions around the potential reduction of VAT on energy bills as part of cost of living measures. In the event of any reduction in the VAT rate, this will be reflected in the kWh pricing for the EV public charging infrastructure and any VAT saving will be passed on to customers.