Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

320 Chapter 12: Environment and Energy 8. Electricity generation Ireland has seen significant changes in electricity generation over the past 20 years, and significant changes are expected over the next 20 years. This expectation is due in part to our significant wind and solar energy resources and also to the potential role of electrification in decarbonising heating and transport, which currently remain locked into fossil fuel systems. Ireland’s electricity demand was almost 34,000 GWh in 2022, accounting for 22% of TFC, while combustion of oil and gas accounted for 70% of TFC. The share of electricity in TFC is projected to increase with the increase in the number of electric vehicles and heat pumps, displacing the use of oil and gas for transport and heating. Electricity demand is also growing in response to economic and population growth. Electricity use in the information and communication technologies sector has increased in particular in recent years, due to the increase in the number of data centres in Ireland. Electricity demand overall increased by 3% per annum on average over the 5-year period to 2022. Of this increase in demand, 23% per annum is due to the ICT sector, which currently accounts for over 20% of total demand. There have been significant changes in Ireland’s electricity fuel mix over the period from 2015 to 2023. Electricity demand increased in this 8-year period by 22%, but the fossil fuels combusted to generate this electricity reduced by 23%, demonstrating the higher efficiency of low-carbon electricity generation. There has been a reduction in solid fuel usage (coal and peat) for electricity generation and an increase in electricity generation from renewables and efficient natural gas plants. In 2023, 40.7% of Ireland’s gross electricity supply (which is the sum of indigenous generation and net imports) was renewable (SEAI, 2024b). The year 2023 saw new records for wind generation in Ireland, which was 4.1% higher than in 2022, setting a new annual record of 11.7 TWh. It was also the first year that Ireland produced more energy from wind than it extracted from its natural gas reserves (10.9 TWh) (SEAI, 2024b). The impact of these changes on Ireland’s electricity generation mix is also demonstrated over a longer period by the substantial reduction in the CO 2 intensity of electricity in Ireland, down from 896 g CO 2 /kWh in 1990 to 255 g CO 2 /kWh in 2023 (SEAI, 2023; EPA, 2024c).