Wholesale electricity prices fell by 20.9 per cent in December compared with the same period last year, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.
The wholesale price was 11.7 per cent lower in December than it was the previous month in November 2025. This amounted to prices being 72 per cent lower than they were at their peak in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in August 2022.
Despite this, the annual average prices of electricity increased by 5.5 per cent in 2025 compared with the average in 2024, and remains around double the level in the years preceding the conflict.
Despite recent cuts to wholesale prices, the cost to consumers remain elevated. Market analysts warn there is unlikely to be a rowing back of prices to pre-2022 levels.
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The outlook for households is “mixed” according to Daragh Cassidy of price comparison site Bonkers.ie.
“On the one hand, wholesale gas prices have eased over the past year. We use gas to generate around 40 to 50 per cent of our electricity so its price has a big impact on the price we pay. On the other hand, there are other cost pressures on electricity bills,” he said.
Mr Cassidy noted that wholesale electricity costs only amount to about a third of the price paid by households for electricity.
“The rest is largely covered by opaque fees and charges related to the management of the grid and these costs are continuing to increase it would appear,” he said.
Among the contributing factors, Mr Cassidy pointed to the State’s “rapidly growing population, an increase in the number of data centres operating here, and the increased electrification of the economy” which he said would continue pressure on the demand for electricity and to costs.
“So there’ll be no return to the prices we saw before the war in Ukraine,” he said.
In addition to movements in electricity costs, a CSO index tracking construction materials costs saw a slight drop in December against the previous month but remained 0.9 per cent higher than the same month in 2024.
The index tracking all costs, including materials and wages, The Building & Construction Index was flat in December but 2 per cent higher on the year, according to Deirdre Toher, a statistician in the CSO’s prices division.
Among the biggest factors of inflation in the sector were pipes and fittings, which rose 5.3 per cent, and plaster, which surged 5.2 per cent.
