Provision of Economic Consultancy Support for a new Irish Water Trade Effluent Charging Policy

Description

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (“CRU”) is Ireland’s independent energy and water regulator. The CRU’s mission is to protect the public interest in Water, Energy and Energy Safety. The CRU is guided by four strategic priorities that sit alongside the core activities we undertake to deliver on the public interest. In July 2019, the CRU published its decision on Irish Water’s Non-Domestic Tariff Framework which will apply to Irish Water’s non-domestic customers . This Framework will introduce a harmonised suite of tariffs for non-domestic water and wastewater customers on 1st October 2021. Developing enduring TE charging proposals was originally within the scope of the Non-Domestic Tariff Framework. However, Irish Water informed the CRU that it did not have sufficient data on TE discharges to propose an enduring charging policy at that time. Therefore, the CRU decided that Irish Water maintain the existing Local Authority TE charging arrangements for an interim period as Irish Water had insufficient cost evidence at the time to propose an enduring policy for charging TE discharges. Irish Water still does not have sufficient data to generate enduring TE charging proposals. However, the CRU is of the view that it would not be beneficial to wait for greater cost and discharge data to be available to Irish Water as this may take a number of years for Irish Water to gather. The CRU therefore is considering a number of options to develop interim TE charging arrangements that could be implemented in the near term, that is, until Irish Water has greater cost and discharge data (and the enduring arrangements can be implemented). The high-level approach to the project is as follows: 1) Consult on the future (enduring) and interim TE arrangements; 2) Decide on interim TE arrangements and specific interim TE charge levels; 3) Assessment of how well the enduring and interim TE charging arrangements meet the tariff principles.