| Type | Statutory Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Natural Gas Electricity Generation/Transmission/Distribution |
| Founded | Cork, Ireland (1976)[1] |
| Headquarters | Cork, Ireland Dublin, Ireland |
| Key people | John Mullins, Chief Executive Ed O'Connell Chairman |
| Products | Natural Gas Electricity |
| Revenue | €1,349m (2009) [2] |
| Employees | 1,000+ (2009) [3] |
| Website | www.bordgais.ie |
Bord Gáis Éireann (English: Irish Gas Board), normally branded as Bord Gáis, is the main supplier and distributor of pipeline natural gas in the Republic of Ireland. The company has built an extensive network across Ireland.[4] The company supplies gas to domestic and industrial customers on a fully regulated basis. The tariffs for customers are determined by the Commission for Energy Regulation.
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Bord Gáis Éireann was established as a semi-state company by the Irish government in 1975 to replace a series of private-sector small city-based gas companies, some of whom had got into financial trouble. The company was originally established as a private limited company by shares, Bord Gáis Éireann Teoranta, before being converted to a statutory corporation under the Gas Act 1976, the primary legislation under which BGE operates.
The oldest of the small private companies was the Alliance and Dublin Consumers' Gas Company, which had been founded in the early nineteenth century by Daniel O'Connell, a prominent Irish politician and Lord Mayor of Dublin. After initially supplying the company (known simply as Dublin Gas by the 1980s) with wholesale natural gas, Bord Gáis acquired the assets of the company when it went into receivership in 1987, including its head office in D'Olier Street, Dublin. Other town gas companies were acquired by Bord Gáis in Cork, Limerick, Clonmel, and Kilkenny. Bord Gáis is headquartered in Cork city, though it also has had a substantial presence in Dublin since the acquisition of the assets of Dublin Gas. In 2002 Bord Gáis sold the landmark Dublin Gas head office building in Dublin to Trinity College Dublin, and moved to purpose built premises in Foley Street which is now the main offices of Bord Gáis Energy.
For nearly two decades the main supply of gas available for Bord Gáis came from a Marathon Petroleum owned gasfield near Kinsale, off the Cork coast. This gas field had been found in 1971, the same year as the foundation of the Nuclear Energy Board. This gas field comes ashore at Inch, Co. Cork.
The company has a network between Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Waterford with a number of spurs, this network is connected to Scotland via two separate interconnectors and also has a spur to the Isle of Man which supplies the Manx Electricity Authority. Most of its modern gas supply is imported. A new gas field known as the Corrib off the Mayo coast is scheduled to come onstream by 2008, however Bord Gais will only be purchasing a small amount of the offtake, the majority will be traded on the International Petroleum Exchange.
On 4 July 2008, an "arms-length" subsidiary of Bord Gáis, Gaslink was established to perform the role of transmission and distribution system operator. For now, Bord Gáis Networks still exist and manages the network on behalf of Gaslink. It is planned however that many of its functions will transfer over to the new body [5]
This is the retail (industrial, commercial and residential) division of its gas and electricity products and is based in Dublin. On 18 February 2009, Bord Gáis Energy Supply rebranded as Bord Gáis Energy, with a new logo. It also entered the domestic electricity market on that date, having supplied electricity to business customers for some time.
The major public utility companies underwent major reform in the early 2000s, following the creation of the Commission for Energy Regulation. The structure of Bord Gáis has evolved over time to adapt to regulatory and market conditions. Bord Gáis now has two main business streams – Networks (formerly Transmission and Distribution) and Energy (formerly Energy Supply). The company’s primary activities are the development and operation of gas networks and the supply of gas and electricity. Further restructuring is underway to meet the legal unbundling requirements of the EU Gas Directive 2003/55/EC. The Gas Directive requires that, in the case of vertically integrated utilities such as Bord Gáis, the Transmission System Operator (TSO) and the Distribution System Operator (DSO) functions to be legally and functionally unbundled from activities not related to these functions, although a combined DSO/TSO is permissible. Therefore a new independent subsidiary, Gaslink, has been established to fulfil the functions of the Irish TSO and DSO and will gradually take over much of the operations of Bord Gáis Networks.
All natural gas customers are now eligible to change gas supplier from Bord Gáis Energy to an alternative shipper.
On 18 February 2009, Bord Gáis Energy entered the residential market, joining Airtricity and ESB Customer Supply. The market was deregulated in 2007.It offers 10% discount off ESB Customer Supply prices similar to the discount on offer by Airtricity also, during 2009 and 5% off it from 2010, and 2011. It offers an additional 2% discount for direct debit customers over Airtricity and a further 2% for Bord Gáis gas customers as at that date.
As of May 2010 Bord Gáis has over one million gas and electricity customers.
In June 2010, Bord Gáis created Ireland's first energy index[5]
Bord Gáis provide a number of value added services such as boiler servicing and power flushing. They have recently opened the first web shop of its kind.[9]
Bord Gáis operates a number of subsidiary companies BG CoGen and Combined Heat and Power business and Aurora Telecom a telco venture which is now a dark fibre leasing company.
Bord Gáis bought the SWS wind energy company in late 2009.[10] SWS operates a number of wind farms in the Munster and Ulster.[11]
Bord Gáis has an ambitious plan to develop the gas market in Northern Ireland. A pipeline from Carrickfergus to Derry was completed in October 2004 and now serves Coolkeeragh Power Station. A second pipeline, known as the South-North pipeline, was commissioned in October 2006. It runs from Gormanston in the Republic to join the Carrick/Derry pipeline near Antrim creating an all-Ireland network and providing redundancy in case of problems with either Scotland - Northern Ireland pipeline or the Scotland - Republic of Ireland interconnectors.
The Utility Regulator for Northern Ireland has awarded Bord Gáis a licence to supply homes and businesses in the towns and cities near the two pipelines - Antrim, Armagh, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Banbridge, Craigavon, Derry, Limavady and Newry - where the local subsidiaries of BG use the trading name of firmus energy. On 1 December 2005, firmus launched their first supply in Northern Ireland, to the large Michelin tyre factory in Ballymena.[12] On 25 April 2006 firmus connected its first residential customers in Derry.
The decision to award this licence was widely disputed and Phoenix Gas, the incumbent in Belfast and the surrounding area, launched a judicial review of the decision to award it to BGE, they claimed that it was more of a political decision and they claimed that Bord Gáis will lose a significant amount of money and that the business will be loss making.
firmus energy are also competing to supply gas and electricity to large industrial and commercial customers across Northern Ireland. They supply gas in Belfast to Northern Ireland's largest bakery, Allied Bakeries[13] and have been awarded an electricity supply licence.[14] 0n 30 March 2009, the company said it had signed up Ballymena soft drinks manufacturer Norbev as its first electricity customer.[15]
In the autumn of 2009, a consortium of BGE (Northern Ireland) and Storengy, a company of GDF Suez, will be undertaking a seismic survey of land in the Larne area to determine if there are salt layers that could be used for the storage of natural gas.[16]
Bord Gáis Energy has twelve stores (branded Energy Supply Stores) around the country, however they are run on a franchise basis and not by Bord Gáis itself. In 2002 Bord Gáis Natural Gas Showroom in D'Olier Street, operated by the company itself, was closed, in 2006 its Cork company-owned showroom was also closed.
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