Thirty eight per cent of all electricity was generated by wind last month, making it the biggest contributor to Ireland\u2019s fuel mix in April, according to new provisional data from EirGrid.<\/p>\n
The figures show that, overall, 48 per cent of electricity came from renewable sources in April, with 6 per cent of electricity generated by large grid-scale solar farms. <\/p>\n
It was third consecutive month where renewable generation met around half of electricity demand, as Eirgrid said \u201csignificant progress continues to be made\u201d in integrating renewables onto Ireland\u2019s power system.<\/p>\n
To date, the developments EirGrid has made have enabled up to 75 per cent of electricity to be generated from variable renewable sources at any one time, and EirGrid said it has a \u201csignificant work programme\u201d underway to increase this to 95 per cent. <\/p>\n
Looking at the same month last year, EirGrid\u2019s metered data shows that 33 per cent of electricity was generated by wind and 0.9 per cent by grid-scale solar. <\/p>\n
Overall, total generation from wind and grid scale solar last month was 1,078 gigawatt hours (GWh) and 163 GWh respectively, compared with 761 GWh and 119 GWh in April 2025. <\/p>\n
EirGrid balances supply and demand every minute of the day from the National Control Centre, while also planning for Ireland\u2019s long-term electricity needs. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere last month, gas generation accounted for\u202f35 per cent of all electricity used while 16 per cent was imported via interconnection.<\/p>\n
The overall electricity system demand\u202fstood at\u202f2,865 GWh in April, compared to 3,142 GWh in March.<\/p>\n
April also saw a new record for solar power, as Ireland reached a new peak of over 1 gigawatt (GW) of electricity provided by grid-scale solar power for the first time.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that 1 GW is enough to power around 500,000 customers, and EirGrid attributed the new record to the growing number of large solar farms connected to the power system.<\/p>\n
EirGrid director of system operations Diarmaid Gillespie said it was positive to see April was the third consecutive month where almost half of Ireland\u2019s electricity was generated by renewables. <\/p>\n
\u201cWind continues to be the largest contributor, but the growth of solar in Ireland\u2019s fuel mix if noteworthy as we head into the summer months,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The data comes days after the Climate Change Advisory Council reported wholesale electricity prices halved on recent windy days as it pleaded with the Government to speed up the supply of renewable power.<\/p>\n
It said as long as the country needs to import large volumes of fossil fuels to generate electricity, customers will be denied the chance of cheaper bills.<\/p>\n
The price gap on high wind days versus high fossil fuel days was \u20ac94 per megawatt hour compared to \u20ac179, the independent body said. However, it said the number of new wind and solar farms being developed has slowed and is running behind target.<\/p>\n
This view echoes concerns expressed by industry group Wind Energy Ireland, which said no new wind farms got planning permission in the first quarter of the year. <\/p>\n
It said 15 wind projects were awaiting a planning decision for more than a year, with six waiting for more than two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty eight per cent of all electricity was generated by wind last month, making it the biggest contributor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52922,27796,61,60,43,3400],"class_list":["post-454872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-climate-change-advisory-council","tag-eirgrid","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-renewable-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}