Where Ireland’s electricity comes from: wind, gas, imports and solar in charts

On our calculation from SEAI's provisional figures, renewables edged past gas as the biggest source of Ireland's electricity in 2025, a first in SEAI's series back to 2005. These charts show how the mix has changed since 2005, and why imports now matter so much.

On an Irish Wire calculation from SEAI's provisional figures, renewables supplied more of Ireland's electricity than gas in 2025. That has not happened in any earlier year of SEAI's series, which goes back to 2005. Renewables gave 41.0% and gas 40.0%.

SEAI is the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the State body that tracks energy use. Its figures cover all electricity supplied in the year, including net imports through interconnectors, the cables that link Ireland's grid to other grids.

Twenty years of change

In 2005, coal, peat and oil made up 44% of the electricity supply. By 2025 they were below 2%. Wind farms filled most of the gap. Gas peaked at 63.2% of supply in 2010 and has mostly fallen since 2020.

The line is not smooth. Renewables dipped in 2021, and coal and oil use rose again that year. The share is also held back because total demand keeps growing.

A terawatt hour (TWh) is a billion units of electricity, the kWh on your bill. Data centres used 21.2% of all electricity in 2024, and they account for 88.2% of the growth in demand since 2015.

The 2025 mix at a glance

Wind does most of the work among renewables. In 2024, wind produced 11.65 TWh, or 32.1% of supply, from 4.94 gigawatts of turbines. Solar panels produced 1.09 TWh, up 69.1% in a year.

In 2024, fossil fuels made 45.3% of the electricity supply, the lowest share on record. SEAI's 2025 numbers are provisional and can change when the final energy balance is published.

Imports have grown fast

Power comes in through links called interconnectors: two undersea cables, Greenlink and East-West, and the North-South line. In May 2025, net imports were bigger than all the electricity made by wind.

SEAI recorded net imports of zero in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020. Since 2023 they have climbed fast, rising by 54.5% in 2024 alone. In January to September 2025, 45.9% of net imports came through the Greenlink interconnector, 28.7% through North-South and 25.4% through East-West.

Winter is windy, summer is sunny

The mix changes a lot from month to month. EirGrid, which runs the national grid, publishes provisional monthly figures. They cover Ireland only, not Northern Ireland, and can be revised later.

January used 22% more electricity than August. Cold, dark evenings push demand up just when solar panels produce almost nothing: solar gave just under 1% of electricity in January 2026.

Solar is the fastest-growing source. Grid-scale solar farms supplied 9.4% of electricity in July 2026, and 692 GWh across June to August, up 58% on summer 2025. EirGrid says its solar shares leave out rooftop panels.

A megawatt (MW) is a thousand kilowatts, and measures power at one moment. 2026 has already brought a run of new records on the grid.

• Wind: 3,898 MW at 5.50pm on Saturday 14 February.
• Solar: over 1,000 MW for the first time, 1,021 MW at 12.19pm on 20 April.
• Solar: 1,300 MW at 11.43am on 24 August.
• Sunday demand: 5,480 MW at 5.31pm on 4 January.
• Saturday demand: 5,408 MW at 6.10pm on 14 February.

On calm days, gas and imports fill the gap. In August 2026 wind gave just 18% of electricity, while gas supplied 42% and imports 26%.

Who uses all this electricity

Businesses and public services use more electricity than homes. Homes used about a quarter of all electricity in 2024.

Data centre demand reached 7.0 TWh in 2024, up 10% in a year. Since 2020 the official renewable share, called RES-E, has stayed within 1.8 points of 39.5%, while total demand kept rising.

EirGrid connected 394 MW of new renewable projects to the transmission system, the high-voltage grid, in the year to 30 September 2025: 180 MW of solar, 151 MW of wind and 63 MW of storage.

Cleaner power, but a long way to 2030

Each unit of power is cleaner because coal and peat have almost gone and wind has grown. The 2025 figure, 199.3 grams per kWh, is less than a third of the 2005 level of 632 grams.

Electricity emissions were 6.9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024, the lowest on record. SEAI's early estimate for 2025 is 6.5 million tonnes.

The Government target is 80% renewable electricity by 2030. On the official measure used for that target, called RES-E, the share was 41.3% in 2024, the highest yet.