Consumption of renewable energy grew in Northern Ireland in 2019

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RENEWABLE electricity consumption has grown in Northern Ireland and 85 per cent of its renewable electricity was generated from wind, according to a report by Department for the Economy.

‘Electricity Consumption and Renewable Generation in Northern Ireland: Year ending September 2019’ details the percentage of electricity consumption in Northern Ireland generated from renewable sources.

The report reflects performance against the 2011-15 Programme for Government target, which was to ‘encourage achievement of 20 per cent of electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2015.’

It also includes the Executive’s 2010-20 Strategic Energy Framework, which holds a target to achieve 40 per cent of electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2020.

Main results

  • For the 12-month period October 2018 to September 2019, 44.9 per cent of total electricity consumption in Northern Ireland was generated from renewable sources located in Northern Ireland. This is an increase of 7.9 percentage points on the previous  period (October 2017 to September 2018) and is the second-highest rolling 12-month proportion on record.
  • In terms of the volume of electricity consumption between October 2018 and September 2019, some 7,737 Gigawatt hours of total electricity was consumed in Northern Ireland. Of this, some 3,475 GWh was generated from renewable sources within Northern Ireland. This is the third-highest rolling 12-month volume of renewable electricity generated on record.
  • Of all renewable electricity generated within Northern Ireland from October 2018 to September 2019, 85.2 per cent was generated from wind. This compares to 83.9 per cent for the previous 12 month period (October 2017 to September 2018).

The full report is available here