Ervia

Ervia

Type	Statutory Corporation
Industry	Natural gas Electricity Generation/Transmission/Distribution
Founded	Cork, Ireland (1976)[1]
Headquarters	Cork, Ireland
Key people	John Barry (acting), Chief Executive Ed O'Connell Chairman
Products	Natural gas Electricity
Revenue	€1,349m (2009) [2]
Number of employees	1,000+ (2009) [3]
Slogan	"The energy to sustain."
Website	www.ervia.ie

Ervia, previously known as Bord Gáis^[4] or Bord Gáis Éireann (Irish pronunciation: [ˈbˠɔɾˠdˠ ˈɡaːʃ ˈeːrʲən̪ˠ], meaning "Gas Board of Ireland"), is a multi-utility company distributing pipeline natural gas and water services in Ireland. The state-owned company has built an extensive network across Ireland.^[5] The company supplies gas to domestic and industrial customers on a regulated basis, with tariffs determined by the Commission for Energy Regulation.

In 2014 the Bord Gáis Energy division was sold to a consortium led by Centrica,^[6] and the Bord Gáis name was transferred as part of the sale. Bord Gáis Éireann was therefore renamed Ervia in June 2014. Ervia is the parent company of Ireland's largest utility company, Irish Water.

Origins

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 art deco Dublin Gas head office building in D'Olier Street, Dublin to Trinity College Dublin. this building was designed by Robinson and Keefe Architects in about 1928. The exterior is clad in grey and black stone. The interior which was originally lit by Gasoliers still remains as a protected structure. Bord Gáis moved to purpose built premises in Foley Street, Dublin, which is now the main offices of Bord Gáis Energy. Bord Gáis now have offices at Lower Mount Street, Dublin.

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.

Gas Networks Ireland

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 2016, however Ervia will only be purchasing a small amount of the offtake; the majority will be traded on the Intercontinental Exchange. Bord Gáis Networks changed its name in 2014 to Gas Networks Ireland.

Gaslink

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, Gas Networks Ireland still exists and manages the network on behalf of Gaslink. It is planned however that many of its functions will transfer over to the new body

Bord Gáis Energy

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.

Deregulation of the Irish gas market

The major public utility companies underwent major reform in the early 2000s, following the creation of the Commission for Energy Regulation. The structure of Ervia and Bord Gáis has evolved over time to adapt to regulatory and market conditions. Ervia 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 gas Networks Ireland.

All natural gas customers are now eligible to change gas supplier from Bord Gáis Energy to an alternative shipper.

Deregulation of the Irish electricity market

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.

Market share

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^[7]

^{[8] [9] [10]}

Home services

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.^[11]

Separation and sale of Bord Gáis Energy

The European Union's Third Energy Package requires unbundling of vertically integrated energy undertakings with the separation of supply and transportation functions.^{[12] [13]} During 2011, BGE created a separate Bord Gáis Energy division.^[14] The division includes Retail, Trading and Assets units.^[15]

In February 2012 the Irish government announced its intention of selling Bord Gáis Energy as part of the reforms required following the banking crisis bailout.^[16] In November 2013, Pat Rabbitte, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources said that none of the bids received met the government's valuation of BG Energy.^[17] However, on 13 December 2013, Rabitte said the original three bidders for BG Energy had come back with increased bids and a consortium comprising Centrica, Brookfield Renewable Power and iCON Infrastructure had submitted a revised bid which was acceptable to him and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin. The sale for €1,120 million is expected to be completed in the first half of 2014.^[6] Under the proposed sale, Centrica would buy the Retail unit, Brookfield Renewables the wind power unit and iCON infrastructure would acquire Firmus Energy.^[18]

Subsidiary companies

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.

SWS

Bord Gáis bought the SWS wind energy company in late 2009.^[19] SWS operates a number of wind farms in the Munster and Ulster.^[20]

Firmus

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.^[21] 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^[22] and have been awarded an electricity supply licence.^[23] 0n 30 March 2009, the company said it had signed up Ballymena soft drinks manufacturer Norbev as its first electricity customer.^[24]

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.^[25]

Irish Water

The Water Services Act (2013) formally created Irish Water as a subsidiary of Bord Gáis,^[26][27] to provide "safe, clean and affordable water and waste water services" to water users in Ireland.^[28] Public concerns on operational,^[29] documentation,^[30][31] and financial^[32] issues were highlighted throughout the initial months of the subsidiary's operations.^[33]

Irish Water is accountable to two regulatory bodies, the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) who is the economic regulator for the water industry, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who is the environmental regulator.^[34]

Neither Irish Water nor the CER has published any analysis of the cost of consumption during the consultation process.^[35] In economic terms, to understand affordability, one has to consider total consumption costs. However, Irish Water's parent Bord Gáis directly sells and installs limited life-span ion-exchange units,^[36] where the initial cost is €1100, with ongoing costs for electricity, salt and flushing water.

Former operations

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.

Main offices

• HQ - Gasworks Road, Cork 51°53′42″N 8°27′38″W / 51.8950°N 8.4606°W / 51.8950; -8.4606
• Energy, IT & Shared Services - Foley Street, Dublin 1 53°21′10″N 6°14′57″W / 53.3528°N 6.2493°W / 53.3528; -6.2493
• Networks - Arena Road, Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18 53°16′25″N 6°12′30″W / 53.2735°N 6.2083°W / 53.2735; -6.2083
• Firmus Energy - Kilbegs Business Park, Antrim BT41 4NN 54°43′56″N 6°14′20″W / 54.7322°N 6.2389°W / 54.7322; -6.2389
• Gaslink - 6 Lapps Quay, Cork 51°53′56″N 8°27′50″W / 51.8988°N 8.4640°W / 51.8988; -8.4640

External links

• Official corporate site
• Bord Gáis Energy
• Gas Networks Ireland
• Aurora official site
• Firmus Energy official site

References

Electricity generation in Ireland Companies / organisations Airtricity Dublin Bay Power EirGrid Ervia ESB Group Huntstown Power Imera Power Northern Ireland Electricity Premier Power (NI) Spirit of Ireland SSE Renewables Viridian Group (NI) Electricity generating stations Aghada Ardnacrusha Ballylumford (NI) Carnsore Point Coolkeeragh (NI) Inniscarra Kilroot (NI) Kinsale Road Leixlip Lough Ree Moneypoint Poulaphouca Ringsend (Poolbeg) SeaGen (NI) Shannonbridge Tarbert Turlough Hill (NI) indicates Northern Ireland