The electricity generated from renewable energy sources in Ireland such as wind and solar increased by some 66% in the five years to 2020, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Volume wise, the 66% jump represented an increase from 3,063MW generated in 2015 to 5,077MW in 2020.

Of all renewable energy sources, wind energy generation has seen the greatest increase over the five years with 2,451MW generated in 2015 and 4,307MW in 2020, an increase of 79%.

While electricity generated from solar energy sources has increased by a substantial 3,766%, from 2.4MW in 2015 to 92.8MW in 2020, the volumes still remain low when compared to wind energy.

Hydroelectric power generation has remained stable since 2015, with no increase in 2020 on the 529MW generated five years earlier.

Notably, electricity generated through biogas energy sources has increased only slightly from 53.4MW generated in 2015 to 59.5MW generated in 2020, an increase of 11%.

Plateauing

However, when comparing the growth in the level of electricity generated from renewable energy sources over the latter half of the last decade, it did begin to plateau somewhat between 2018 and 2020.

The electricity generated from renewable energy sources in Ireland increased by a smaller 4.5% between 2019 and 2020. This compares to jumps of 12% between 2015 and 2016 and 17% between 2016 and 2017.

This decrease in the overall rate of renewable energy generation can largely be attributed to a levelling off in wind energy expansion with a 4% increase seen between 2019 and 2020, compared to a cumulative 79% between 2015 and 2020.

Overall, in 2020, Ireland used 1,020W of electricity generated from renewable energy sources per capita. This compares to 653W per capita in 2015 and represents an increase of 56%. The 1,020W used per capita in 2020 is also up 3% on the 988W used in 2019.

Second largest

Renewable energy sources are now the second largest source of electricity consumed in Ireland after natural gas.

In 2020, 42% of all electricity consumption came from renewable sources.

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