STATE-OWNED energy company Bord Gáis has signed 100,000 customers to the domestic electricity supply service it introduced in February.

The company said yesterday that 2008 pretax profits were down 10 per cent on the previous year at €151 million. Increased spending on expanding its business, the cost of sales and increased regulatory costs all contributed to the €15 million fall in profits, Bord Gáis said yesterday.

The State company supplies natural gas to 630,000 homes and a large number of businesses around the State.

In recent years it has expanded into the commercial electricity market, and last February began competing with the ESB to supply electricity to households. The company said yesterday that 100,000 homes have pledged to switch to its electricity service. There are around 1.7 million domestic electricity users in the Republic.

Its accounts show that the company paid a dividend of just over €27.9 million to the exchequer last year. The State owns 95 per cent of the company. It also paid €431,000 to the trustee of an employee share-option scheme which the company established for workers last year. The scheme owns 5 per cent of Bord Gáis and the dividend was paid in proportion to both parties’ stakes in the company.

Group sales increased 14 per cent in 2008 to €1.38 billion from €1.2 billion the previous year. Natural gas accounted for close to 66 per cent of turnover at €881 million, an increase of 15 per cent on 2007. Electricity sales were up 18 per cent at €282 million.

Bord Gáis’s capital spending came to €318 million in 2008, from €204 million in 2007. The company is building a 445 megawatt electricity generating plant in Cork, and has also been buying renewable energy businesses, mainly wind farms.

Its power station will have the capacity to supply electricity to over 400,000 homes, and chief executive John Mullins predicted yesterday that it will be in full commercial service by June 2010.

Its net debt increased to €1.2 billion in 2008 from €1.15 billion in 2007. The Oireachtas last year voted to increase its borrowing limit to €3 billion from €1.7 billion. The company recently borrowed $450 million through a private placement with institutional investors in the US.

Natural gas prices are due to fall by 12 per cent from the start of next month, and Mr Mullins believes that there will be scope to cut them by a further double-digit sum in the autumn.