{"id":542931,"date":"2026-07-10T15:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T15:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/542931\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T15:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T15:48:12","slug":"fossil-fuels-dominate-irelands-energy-mix-despite-wind-and-solar-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/542931\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossil fuels dominate Ireland&#8217;s energy mix despite wind and solar growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fossil fuels continue to dominate the Irish energy system, accounting for more than 70% of the country&#8217;s energy requirement last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Figures from the <a href=\"https:\/\/seai.ie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI)<\/a> show that four-fifths (78.2%) of Ireland&#8217;s energy requirement was met through imports in 2025, substantially higher than the EU average of 57.3%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Almost 93% of those imports were fossil fuels, with Ireland importing all its oil and coal requirements as well as 82% of its natural gas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, fossil fuel usage declined 4.7% as coal use fell sharply (-45%), and renewable energy accounted for a record 15.9% of the energy requirement, increasing 6.8% year-on-year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businessplus.ie\/tag\/wind-energy\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"5817\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Wind<\/a> remains Ireland&#8217;s largest renewable energy source, accounting for almost half of all renewable energy supplied during the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Solar saw strong growth, accounting for 6% of renewable energy supply, with usage rising 50% since 2024 and 150% since 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Heat pumps, biomass and biofuels also contributed to growth in renewable energy supply, meaning that almost two-thirds (64.9%) of all energy produced within Ireland now comes from renewable sources.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/windfarm.jpg\" alt=\"Fossil Fuels\" class=\"wp-image-230379\"  \/>Wind and solar use both increased in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, Ireland&#8217;s energy requirement decreased 2.2% compared with 2024 while energy-related emissions fell by 3.7% to its lowest level in more than three decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The UK remained Ireland&#8217;s largest supplier, accounting for more than half (55.5%) of all energy imports in 2025, followed by the US (16.9%) and EU countries (16.2%).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(Pic: Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fossil fuels continue to dominate the Irish energy system, accounting for more than 70% of the country&#8217;s energy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-542931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542931","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=542931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}