Mid-year review - Ireland's energy and related emissions
The mid-year review of the electricity generated, oil delivered, and gas supplied into the Irish market in the first 6-months of 2024 compares data from this period to what has been observed in previous years.
The availability of timely and trusted data on Ireland's energy has never been more important. Policy updates and targets are operating on increasingly shorter timescales to drive faster annual emission reductions and guide us toward net-zero emissions by 2050.
This note supports timely and informed discussions on these energy policies and targets, by accelerating the pace at which key data and insights on Ireland's energy and related CO2 emissions are published by SEAI. This note leverages the provisional monthly data collected to satisfy Ireland's international reporting obligations to the EU, to make early in-year estimates on key areas of energy supply and emissions.
Key points of interest
Comparing monthly electricity data for the first six months of 2024 with data from the same period in 2023:
- SEAI estimates emissions from the electricity sector in the first half of 2024 were down 17.2%.
- Almost half (48.9%) of utility scale generation was renewable.
- 10.2% more renewable electricity was generated (+0.5 TWh).
- Electricity from wind farms was up 5.9%, but below what was seen in the same 6-month period in 2020 and 2021.
- Electricity from solar farms was up 75% in the first half of 2024, from a relatively low base, and accounted for 2.2% of utility-scale generation.
- Overall utility-scale supply of electricity was 4.0% (0.7 TWh) higher.
- Utility-scale generation in Ireland fell by 3.1% due to increased use of imported electricity.
- Electricity imports in the first half of 2024 were up 84%.
- In the first 6-months of 2024 imports accounted for a record-breaking 14.4% of Ireland's utility scale electricity supply
- Imports were the third-largest source of electricity in Ireland, after electricity generation from natural gas and from wind.
Comparing monthly oil delivery data for the first six months of 2024 with data from the same period in 2023:
SEAI estimates that emissions from the transport sector in the first 6-months of 2024 were 5.8 MtCO2eq, down 1.3% on the same period one-year earlier.
Demand for blended road diesel in the first half of 2024 was down 1.1%.
Demand for blended road petrol in the first half of 2024 was up 4.4%.
Biodiesel accounted for 8.6% of blended road diesel.
Bioethanol accounted for 5.4% of blended road petrol.
Deliveries of jet kerosene in the first half of 2024 were down 3.5% on the same period last year and comparable to those observed in first half of 2019, before international travel was impacted by COVID travel restrictions.
Deliveries of heating kerosene in the first half of 2024 were up 5.6% - practically all heating kerosene is consumed in the residential sector.
Comparing monthly gas supply data for the first six months of 2024 with data from the same period in 2023:
- Total gas supply was down 2.8%.
- Gas for electricity generation in was down 9.3%.
- Gas for residential (heating) use was up 5.1%.
- Gas demand from the industry and services sectors in the first half of 2024 was up 7.9%.
- Ireland's Indigenous production from the Corrib gas field was down 13.5%.
- Imported gas supply in the first half of 2024 was up 0.6%.
- Imported gas accounted for 79.4% of Ireland's total gas supply.
The above estimates of sectoral emissions from electricity and transport for the first six months of 2024 are based on the latest data currently available on electricity generated and inland deliveries of oil. Definitive sectoral data on the quantities of fuels combusted and resultant emission in 2024 will be available in 2025, provided in SEAI's 2024 National Energy Balance and the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Emissions 1990-2024 Report, respectively.