Networked Gas Consumption 2023

Introduction

This release contains consumption data from Gas Networks Ireland on all connections to the mains gas network.

Consumption Units

The data are gross calorific values expressed in kilowatt hours (kWh) or gigawatt hours (GWh). A kilowatt hour is a unit of energy equivalent to one kilowatt of power sustained over an hour. A gigawatt hour is equivalent to one million kWh. Kilowatt hours are used for presenting median figures and gigawatt hours for presenting aggregates.

County

The CSO extracted the county and Dublin postal district from the postal address provided by Gas Networks Ireland.

Coverage

The data cover all customers connected to the natural gas network. This includes power plants, non-residential, and residential customers. Three counties (Donegal, Leitrim, and Sligo) had no meter connections. The 2022 Census of Population showed that there were 2.1 million households in Ireland of which 1.9 million were occupied. The release contains a map showing the locations of the residential meters using the coordinates provided by Gas Networks Ireland (See Map 1).

Data Quality

The meter readings data were converted to monthly and quarterly consumption estimates by Gas Networks Ireland. Meter readings can be actual or estimated. In some cases, an estimated reading that was too high resulted in a low or negative reading for a subsequent period, i.e. no attempt was made to adjust the earlier over or under estimate. The data file provided to the CSO did not provide information on whether the consumption in a period was based on an estimated reading. The results are broadly consistent with Gas Networks Ireland reports and with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland energy balances.

Revisions

Data for all years are subject to revision.

Data Source

The CSO received the administrative microdata from Gas Networks Ireland under Section 30 of the Statistics Act, 1993. The microdata contain quarterly consumption data for residential and smaller non-residential customers and monthly data for larger users. The CSO received data for 2011-2023 for all customers and for 2006 for residential and smaller non-residential customers.

Median

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. The median for a year is calculated independently of the quarterly medians, e.g. in Table 5A.

Release Frequency

This release is published on an annual basis.

Sector

The data have been classified into three sectors: power plants; non-residential; and residential. Gas Networks Ireland classified the data as residential or non-residential. Their classification is partly based on the consumption figure. The CSO made a small number of adjustments to recode some meters in a consistent way as residential or industry and commercial for all years. The CSO classified a small number of customers as power plants. 

The residential sector includes some small non-residential customers.

Some non-residential customers also use natural gas to generate electricity. The CSO has not made any attempt to distribute the gas consumption of these enterprises between both sectors. In one case an enterprise with very high consumption was classified as a power plant rather than as non-residential.