Jersey Electricity : Electricity prices frozen for another winter

The 100MW Normandie 1 cable has been importing power from France for a whole year, helping prices, supply security and reducing carbon

Jersey Electricity is freezing prices for another winter, benefiting all Islanders with four full years without an increase in electricity tariffs. The announcement follows the first complete year successfully operating with three undersea supply cables to France importing lower cost, low carbon electricity, and the extension earlier this year of JE's supply agreement with EDF.

JE CEO Chris Ambler said: 'Our customer research shows that providing affordable electricity is the single most important factor to our customers in the provision of our service and we are pleased we have been able to maintain our tariffs at the same level since April 2014.

'This is an important achievement given the scale of our investment in infrastructure over the last five years and when compared with the UK that has seen the 'Big Six' increase retail electricity prices by an average of 14% in 2017. Our standard domestic tariff is 14% below the UK benchmark levels, 15% below the EU average and compares favourably with similar jurisdictions.'

The successful integration into the network of the £30m Normandie 1 subsea cable at the end of 2016 alongside the existing Normandie 2 and 3 cables has also greatly enhanced supply reliability and has delivered a virtually fully decarbonised electricity system in Jersey. Latest figures show that with an average of just eight minutes of supply interruption per customer (Customer Minutes Lost) in 2016/17, Jersey's electricity supply is now around 10 times more reliable than the UK's. And with a carbon intensity of just 35g COe / kWh, Jersey's electricity has one tenth the carbon emissions of the UK's
electricity supply which is currently 352g CO e /kWh.