The figures for 2021 may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This release combines the CSO domestic Building Energy Ratings (BER) and Networked Gas Consumption statistical releases. See Energy Statistics for more detailed information on these releases.
The main purpose of this release is to examine how gas consumption varies by type of dwelling and by energy rating. Only dwellings that used natural gas as their main space heating fuel in their Building Energy Ratings audit have been included in the analysis. Total floor area is taken into account by publishing an indicator on mean kilowatt hours per square metre.
Similar analyses has been published combining domestic metered electricity consumption with domestic building energy ratings.
The CSO obtained access to the microdata for statistical purposes only under the Statistics Act, 1993.
The BER microdata were obtained from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. A Building Energy Rating is an indication of the energy performance of a dwelling (represented in units of kWh/m2/year). The BER certificate indicates the annual primary energy usage associated with the provision of space heating, water heating, ventilation, lighting, and associated pumps and fans. The energy use is calculated on the basis of a notional family with a standard pattern of occupancy.
The consumption data were received from Gas Networks Ireland. It includes all connections to the mains gas network. The data are gross calorific values expressed in kilowatt hours. A kilowatt hour is a unit of energy equivalent to one kilowatt of power sustained over an hour.
This analysis was restricted to BER audits using natural gas as their main space heating fuel. Dwellings with less than 10 square metres of total floor area were excluded. Dwellings using less than 1 or more than 250 kWh per square metre in a year were excluded.
The Eircode was used as the matching variable between the building energy ratings and gas consumption files. The CSO supplemented the building energy ratings file with Eircodes from an ESB Networks electricity customer file. This was possible because the meter point reference number (MPRN) was in both files. This step added more Eircodes to the BER file.
The networked gas microdata contained an Eircode and geo-coordinate linking variables to GeoDirectory, which is a national register of post delivery points. The gas meter data were matched by the CSO to GeoDirectory using the X/Y coordinates. The Eircode in GeoDirectory was compared with the Eircode in the gas meter microdata as a data quality check. Additional Eircodes were added from GeoDirectory if possible.
The building energy ratings file contained audits that were undertaken in 2009 to 2021. Only dwellings with natural gas as their main space heating fuel and a total floor area of 10 or more square metres were used. For dwellings with more than one energy audit, only the latest was used.
There were 226,600 BER records matched compared with 380,581 audits with mains gas space heating in the Q4 2021 Domestic Building Energy Ratings release.
The analysis does not take into account any household characteristics such as number of occupants, household income, or labour force status. Some households may use other fuels for supplementary heating - this was not taken into account.
No adjustment was made for variations in the annual temperature. A cold Winter is likely to cause an increase in gas consumption. For information purposes, the monthly mean temperature for Dublin Airport for 2012-2021 is given in the table below:
| Table B Met Eireann Monthly Mean Temperature for Dublin Airport 2012-2021 | ||||||||||||
| Centigrade | ||||||||||||
| Year | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
| 2012 | 6.1 | 6.6 | 8.0 | 6.6 | 9.8 | 12.7 | 14.0 | 15.3 | 12.0 | 8.4 | 6.4 | 5.4 |
| 2013 | 4.9 | 4.2 | 3.1 | 6.8 | 10.0 | 12.7 | 16.7 | 15.6 | 13.0 | 11.7 | 6.3 | 6.9 |
| 2014 | 5.7 | 5.6 | 6.8 | 8.9 | 11.3 | 13.6 | 15.8 | 13.9 | 13.1 | 10.9 | 7.7 | 5.4 |
| 2015 | 4.7 | 4.0 | 5.8 | 7.4 | 9.6 | 12.9 | 13.8 | 14.0 | 11.8 | 10.2 | 8.7 | 8.6 |
| 2016 | 5.7 | 4.4 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 11.1 | 14.0 | 15.7 | 15.4 | 14.3 | 10.4 | 5.6 | 6.7 |
| 2017 | 5.7 | 6.2 | 7.7 | 8.0 | 11.6 | 14.4 | 15.0 | 14.6 | 12.4 | 11.2 | 6.5 | 5.3 |
| 2018 | 5.3 | 3.4 | 4.3 | 8.1 | 11.4 | 14.5 | 16.1 | 15.3 | 12.2 | 9.3 | 8.2 | 7.7 |
| 2019 | 5.1 | 7.0 | 7.3 | 8.0 | 10.2 | 12.5 | 15.9 | 15.4 | 13.0 | 9.1 | 6.0 | 5.9 |
| 2020 | 6.3 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 8.5 | 10.9 | 13.4 | 14.4 | 14.7 | 12.8 | 9.5 | 8.2 | 4.9 |
| 2021 | 3.9 | 6.2 | 7.2 | 5.6 | 9.2 | 13.7 | 16.1 | 14.7 | 14.7 | 11.9 | 7.6 | 6.5 |
No adjustment was made for variations in the retail price of natural gas. For information purposes, the Consumer Price Index for gas is available here https://data.cso.ie/table/CPM16
The figures are subject to revision. If additional Eircodes are added to the BER or gas consumption files, then more matches between both files may be possible.
The median can be regarded as typical usage as it is not influenced by outliers in the same way that the mean or average is.
This release will be published on an annual basis.
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