It is easy to get ahead of ourselves. Between the press releases and Ministerial announcements of record-breaking generation figures, you could be forgiven for thinking Ireland is well on its way to energy independence. The reality deserves a sense check.
Ahead of last week’s solar eclipse, a glowing press release landed in my inbox. Solar generation had hit new records. Wind generation was steadily growing. Ireland, we were told, now has more than 8 GW of renewable electricity generation connected to the network, having added approximately 5 GW in just 10 years. In terms of solar, just over a decade ago Ireland had only 2 MW of installed capacity. Today, that figure stands at more than 2.6 GW, what the Government describes as a “rooftop revolution”.
That is real progress, and it deserves recognition. But it should not distract from the scale of the challenge that remains.
The figures
Provisional EirGrid figures show 32% of Ireland’s electricity came from renewable sources in July, compared with 33% in the same month last year.
However, solar had a record month, with grid-scale generation providing 9.4% of the electricity mix, up from 8.2% in June and 7.8% in May. Wind contributed another 22%, generating 614 GWh.
But look further down the figures and the picture becomes more complicated.
Gas accounted for 43% of electricity used, while 24% was imported through interconnection. The latter is particularly convenient from an accounting perspective as imported electricity is essentially counted as zero emissions here, regardless of whether it was generated from renewables, fossil fuels or nuclear power elsewhere. Demand, meanwhile, continues to grow, reaching 2,744 GWh in July compared with 2,676 GWh in June. And remember, this is only electricity.
Electricity represents just under a quarter of Ireland’s overall energy use. Heat and transport account for much of the remainder and both remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
Progress there has been painfully slow too. Ireland’s first anaerobic digestion plant has only now connected to the national gas grid, seven years after the country’s first biomethane target was set.
Put simply, things are not happening quickly enough.
Hearts and minds
But the energy transition is not measured in megawatts alone. How communities experience and respond to these changes matters too. Ireland needs an enormous amount of new energy infrastructure. Wind and solar farms, power lines, substations, battery storage and anaerobic digestion plants will increasingly become part of the landscape.
Yet the push towards energy security has not always succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of the communities expected to host that infrastructure. No development will ever secure 100% support, but opposition alone cannot become a veto on infrastructure the country needs.
Considerable work goes into selecting a site for a renewable project. Locations are not picked at random. There are technical, environmental, grid and commercial reasons why one site is chosen over another. Yet those reasons are not always explained well enough to the people who live there.Then there are community benefit funds, particularly questions around who controls them and how the money is distributed.
These can be among the most divisive issues facing communities affected by renewable developments. My own inbox reflects that. Coverage of proposed developments regularly produces a flood of criticism and support for the project, and indeed the author. Few issues appear capable of splitting a community quite as effectively as a renewable energy proposal. That should tell the industry something.
Developers know that every turn of a turbine blade, every kilowatt generated on a sunny afternoon and every cubic metre of methane captured rather than released into the atmosphere makes Ireland that little bit more energy secure.
But the need for new infrastructure does not override legitimate community concerns. Building Ireland’s energy independence will require more than additional generation capacity. It will also depend on public confidence, an issue that can sometimes receive less attention.
The reality of delivery
Then there is planning. Just five new wind projects were approved in the second quarter of this year. They represent 311 MW of generation capacity , enough, according to Wind Energy Ireland, to power just over 180,000 homes annually.
That was the highest number of approvals since the first quarter of 2025. But behind it sits an increasingly significant backlog. There are now 48 wind projects, representing 2,668 MW of potential capacity, awaiting decisions from An Coimisiún Pleanála. That compares with 31 projects representing 1,643 MW at the same point last year.
Eighteen projects representing more than 1,000 MW have been awaiting decisions for over a year. Five, representing 277 MW, have been in the system for more than two years.
Integrating that intermittent renewable energy into the grid is another very real challenge. Wind and solar require backup generation, storage, interconnection and a grid capable of balancing rapidly changing supply and demand.
But none of this is a surprise. It is simply part of building an electricity system increasingly based on Ireland’s natural resources. EirGrid says the system can now safely operate with up to 75% of electricity coming from variable renewable sources such as wind and solar at any one time, with work underway to increase that to 95%.
And what about the cost?
The inevitable question is, if Ireland is replacing expensive fossil fuels with wind and solar, why are households not seeing more of the benefit in their pockets?
Research commissioned by Wind Energy Ireland estimates renewables avoided more than €1.5bn in gas and carbon costs in 2025. Those are substantial savings, but consumers still face some of the highest electricity bills in Europe.
There are several reasons. Ireland remains reliant on imported gas and exposed to international fuel prices, while maintaining and upgrading the electricity network is expensive. Taxes, levies and supplier hedging add further costs.
The uncomfortable reality is that Ireland can generate record amounts of renewable electricity, avoid billions in fossil-fuel costs and still leave consumers wondering where the savings went.
That contradiction reflects the wider transition. There has been enormous progress, but energy independence remains a long way off. Fossil fuels remain deeply embedded in electricity, heat and transport, planning delays persist, the grid requires enormous investment and communities remain wary of new infrastructure.
The answer is not to slow the transition, but to accelerate delivery and address the issues that continue to hold it back.
SHARING OPTIONS