In this chapter:
SDG 7.1.1 Proportion of the population with access to electricity.
The SDG Indicators metadata repository provides the following definition in the SDG 7.1.1 metadata document:
Proportion of population with access to electricity is the percentage of population with access to electricity.
SDG7 ensures access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Specifically, Indicator 7.1.1 refers to the proportion of population with access to electricity. This is expressed in percentage figures and is disaggregated by total, urban and rural access rates per country, as well as by UN regional and global classifications.
About two million homes are connected to the electricity supply. However, a portion are vacant at any one time; these include holiday homes, newly built dwellings awaiting sale, houses vacant and for sale or rent, and those being refurbished both private and by Local Authorities (Electricity | Past | Ireland 2050). There were 1.8 million occupied private households enumerated during Census 2022.
The electricity network in Ireland is operated and maintained by ESB Networks (ESBN) but the supply of electricity is privatised. Households are free to choose an electricity supplier from a choice of private companies. Many energy suppliers provide both electricity and gas, and offer a range of services to their customers, including a variety of payment arrangements.
Vulnerable customers who are registered as priority services customers cannot be disconnected. Elderly vulnerable customers who have problems paying their bills cannot be disconnected during the winter months (November to March).
People aged over 70 years are entitled to an electricity allowance, as part of the Household Benefits Package. Some people under 70 years may also qualify if they meet certain criteria. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) is the regulator of the electricity industry and has more information about disconnection and your rights.
Further information regarding electricity services is also available at Citizens Information.
SDG 7.1.2 Proportion of Population with Primary Reliance on Clean Fuels and Technology – indicative information is extracted from the CSO, Census of Population 2022 Profile 2 - Housing in Ireland publication.
Note: The definition of 'Clean fuels and technology' in the context of SDG 7.1.2 is given below.
In the UN metadata document for SDG 7.1.2 clean fuels and technology for cooking, heating and lighting are described as follows:
“Clean” is defined by the emission rate targets and specific fuel recommendations (i.e. against unprocessed coal and kerosene) included in the normative guidance WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: household fuel combustion.
The metadata document also states:
The indicator uses the type of primary fuels and technologies used for cooking, heating, and lighting as a practical surrogate for estimating human exposure to household (indoor) air pollution and its related disease burden, as it is not currently possible to obtain nationally representative samples of indoor concentrations of criteria pollutants, such as fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide.
The concept note in the metadata document states:
Current global data collection focuses on the primary fuel used for cooking, categorized as solid or nonsolid fuels, where solid fuels are considered polluting and non-modern, while non-solid fuels are considered clean. This single measure captures a good part of the lack of access to clean cooking fuels, but fails to collect data on type of device or technology that is used for cooking, and also fails to capture other polluting forms of energy use in the home such as those used for lighting and heating.
New evidence-based normative guidance from the WHO (i.e. WHO Guidelines for indoor air quality guidelines: household fuel combustion), highlights the importance of addressing both fuel and the technology for adequately protecting public health. These guidelines provide technical recommendations in the form of emissions targets for as to what fuels and technology (stove, lamp, and so on) combinations in the home are clean. These guidelines also recommend against the use of unprocessed coal and discourage the use of kerosene (a non-solid but highly polluting fuel) in the home. They also recommend that all major household energy end uses (e.g. cooking, space heating, lighting) use efficient fuels and technology combinations to ensure health benefits.
For this reason, the technical recommendations in the WHO guidelines, access to modern cooking solution in the home will be defined as “access to clean fuels and technologies” rather than “access to non-solid fuels.” This shift will help ensure that health and other “nexus” benefits are better counted, and thus realised.
The Occupied Dwellings chapter in the Census of Population 2022 Profile 2 - Housing in Ireland publication states there has been a big shift in the main type of central heating used within dwellings built recently. Historically, oil has been the most common type of fuel used for heating. Dwellings built since 2016 were much more likely to rely on electricity for central heating.
Main findings show:
See Figure 4.1.
The most common fuel type for central heating in 2022 was oil, followed by natural gas. Almost two in five (38.9%) households used oil, and around a third (32.7%) used natural gas.
Electricity use for central heating increased from 8.6% in 2016 to 11.8% of households in 2022. See Table 4.1 and Figure 4.2.
The reliance on oil as the main source of fuel for central heating increased with the age of the head of the household.
See Table 4.2 and Figure 4.3.
The breakdown of type of central heating by county shows:
Oil: Three quarters (74.8%) of occupied private households in Monaghan used oil as their main central heating fuel in 2022, the highest of all counties. In contrast, only 4.4% of households in Dublin City used oil for central heating.
Natural Gas: In Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown 73.5% of households used natural gas for heating in 2022, the highest proportion of all local authorities, while only 1.1% of households used natural gas in Donegal.
Electricity: Nearly a quarter (23.4%) of households in Dublin City used electricity for heating in 2022, the highest proportion of all local authorities. At 5%, Donegal was the county with the lowest proportion of households using electricity for central heating.
Peat/Turf: In Offaly, over a quarter (27.3%) of households used peat as their main central heating fuel, the highest percentage of all counties in 2022. A fifth (20.4%) of households in Roscommon also used peat as their main central heating fuel.
Coal: In Donegal 11.5% of households used coal for central heating, the county with the highest proportion of coal fuelled central heating in 2022. In contrast, less than half a percent of households used coal in the Dublin local authority regions.
Table 4.3 shows central heating fuel by county. Map 4.1 and Map 4.2 show breakdown of households using oil and gas per county.
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) reports data on final energy consumption in households to Eurostat. Data in Table 4.4 published by Eurostat shows that nearly all households in Ireland used either electricity or natural gas as their main energy source in the seven year period up to 2022. Over three quarters of households used electricity and nearly a quarter of households used natural gas as an energy source.
SDG 7.2.1 Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption is reported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).
The SDG Indicators metadata repository provides the following definition in the SDG 7.2.1 metadata document:
The renewable energy share in total final consumption is the percentage of final consumption of energy that is derived from renewable resources.
More details are available in the SEAI Energy in Ireland 2024 Report and the Renewables section of the SEAI website.
The first Renewable Energy Directive (RED) was the most important legislation influencing the growth of renewable energy in the European Union (EU) and Ireland for the decade ending in 2020. From 2021, RED was replaced by the second Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), which continues to promote the growth of renewable energy out to 2030. RED set out mandatory targets for renewable energy in Ireland to be met by 2020, while RED II sets new targets and criteria to be met by Ireland in 2030 and the interim.
Under the European Green Deal and REPowerEU plan, a significant revision to RED II was finalised during 2023 and entered into force on 20 November 2023 (referred to as RED III). RED III sets more ambitious targets for 2030 and requires Member States to take additional measures to promote the use of renewable energy. RED III also redefines how progress towards the renewable energy targets is calculated, with significant changes made in how the renewable energy share in transport (RES-T) is determined.
The main target set out in the directives relates to overall renewable energy share (RES) and is commonly referred to as the overall RES target. The overall RES is the annual percentage of the gross final consumption (GFC) of energy from renewable sources in the state and is calculated as the sum of:
Besides specifying new EU and national renewable energy targets, RED II also introduced new sustainability and verification criteria for biomass fuels (solid and gaseous) to be implemented from the transposition date (30 June 2021). Introducing these criteria led to circumstances where a portion of the biomass fuel consumed in Ireland in 2021 and 2022 could not be counted in the national renewable shares, specifically towards the overall RES, RES-E and RES-H.
Table 4.5 shows the contribution of renewable electricity (10.1%), heat (2.7%) and transport (2.4%) to the overall RES target (15.3%). Renewable electricity makes the largest contribution to the overall RES and has been responsible for most of the overall growth in renewable energy since 2005. See Table 4.5 and Figure 4.4.
Table 4.6 shows Ireland’s the overall RES figures, along with the RES-E/-H/-T, for 2020 to 2023. The values in the table are calculated under the EU legislation and Commission guidance that was active at the time: 2020 values were calculated under RED I, while 2021-2023 were calculated under RED II.
See Table 4.6 and Figure 4.5.
Ireland has no binding national target for RES-E for 2030, nor was there one for 2020, but RES-E forms the backbone of Ireland’s strategy to achieve the overall renewable energy target for 2030. Ireland’s Climate Action Plan 2024 (CAP 24) includes a target to increase the share of electricity generated from renewable sources up to 80% by 2030.
The Government set an ambitious national target for RES-E of 40% for 2020. Ireland fell just short of this target, achieving 39.1% RES-E in 2020, but despite this, electricity generation has been the most successful of the three modes for the development of energy from renewable sources. The share of electricity from renewable energy increased fivefold between 2005 and 2020 and there was a sevenfold increase in the annual quantity of renewable electricity generated.
RES-E decreased from 39.1% in 2020 to 37.7% in 2021. This drop was primarily due to an increase in electricity consumption, while renewable generation remained stagnant, with around 0.8 pp of electricity generated from biomass or biogas that was ineligible to be counted towards the RES-E. In 2022, the RES-E dropped to 37.4% with around 1.6 pp of electricity from biomass and biogas that was ineligible to contribute. In 2023 the RES-E increased to 40.4%, the highest yet. See Table 4.7 and Figure 4.6.
Under RED III, which entered into force in November 2023 (transposition deadline in 2025), Ireland must increase the share of renewable energy in heating and cooling by at least 0.8 pp and 1.1 pp as annual averages for the periods 2021-2025 and 2026-2030, respectively. Based on Ireland’s 2020 RES-H figure of 6.3%, Ireland’s RES-H would need to reach 10.3% in 2025 to achieve the target for 2021-2025.
The figure above show the share of heating provided by renewable energy as a share of overall heat (gross final consumption of heat). RES-H fell from 6.3% in 2020 to 5.6% in 2021 and then 5.5% in 2022; this decrease can be attributed to the transition from RED I to RED II and the introduction of new sustainability and verification criteria for biomass fuels, see section 8.2.2. In 2023 the RES-H increased 7.9%, a new high. This increase was due to the sustainability data relating to biomass and biogas becoming available in 2023 (i.e. less renewable energy excluded from the RES-H), an increase in the quantity of renewable energy and an overall decrease in consumption of energy in heat.
Renewable heat energy is dominated by the use of solid biomass and renewable wastes in industry. Utilisation of ambient energy (via heat pumps) has grown five-fold between 2013 and 2023 and is now a significant source of renewable heat energy, accounting for approximately 29% of renewable heat energy in 2023. See Table 4.8 and Figure 4.7.
RED I established a mandatory minimum target for the share of renewable energy sources in transport (RES-T) by 2020: 10% of all petrol, diesel, biofuels and electricity consumed in road and rail transport. Ireland exceeded this target reaching 10.2% RES-T in 2020. RED II requires Ireland, along with all member states, to set an obligation on fuel suppliers to ensure that the share of renewable energy within the final consumption of energy in transport is at least 14% by 2030. See Table 4.9 and Figure 4.8.
Biofuels (Biodiesel and Biogasoline) provide almost all of the renewable energy in transport, contributing 96.5% (4.9% and 0.6% of 5.7% total) to RES-T in 2023. Electricity provided the remaining 3.5%. See Table 4.10 and Figure 4.9.
SDG 7.3.1 Energy intensity measured in terms of primary energy and GDP is reported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) who publish data for energy intensity.
The SDG Indicators metadata repository provides the following definition in the SDG 7.3.1 metadata document:
Energy intensity is defined as the energy supplied to the economy per unit value of economic output.
The SEAI published the most recent energy intensity data in Section 9.3 of their Energy in Ireland 2024 Report.
Energy intensity is defined as the amount of energy required to produce a functional output. For the economy, the measure of output is generally taken to be the GDP.
Table 4.11 shows the trend in both primary (primary energy divided by GDP) and final (final energy consumption divided by GDP) energy intensities of the economy (at constant 2022 prices). The difference between these two trends reflects the amount of energy lost in the transformation of primary energy into final energy – mostly for electricity generation. The electricity intensity of the economy (electricity generated divided by GDP) is also shown.
The primary and final energy intensity of the economy has been falling (reflecting improving energy productivity) since 2005. In 2005, it required 0.87 kWh to produce 1 euro of GDP (in constant 2022 values), whereas in 2023 just 0.33 kWh was required.
The sharp fall in the energy intensity of the economy in 2015 of 16% must be viewed in the context of the 25% increase in GDP (the result of the transfer of assets into Ireland). This should be viewed as an adjustment rather than a reduction in intensity, as the increase in GDP had little or no effect on energy consumption. This is a good example of why energy intensity is not a good measure of energy efficiency progress.
See Table 4.11 and Figure 4.10.
The final electricity intensity of the economy has not been falling as fast as primary or final energy intensities. Over the period 2005-2023, electricity intensity fell by 44%. This is attributed to the shift towards increased electricity consumption in energy end-use. Final electricity intensity increased by 6.4% between 2007 and 2010, but fell by 45% between 2010 and 2023.
There are many factors that contribute to how trends in energy intensity of the economy evolve. These factors include: technological efficiency and the fuel mix, particularly in relation to electricity generation; economies of scale in manufacturing; and, not least, the structure of the economy. The structure of the economy, in Ireland, has changed considerably over the past 20 to 30 years. It has shifted in the direction of the high value added sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, electronics and services. Relative to traditional ‘heavier’ industries, such as car manufacturing and steel production, these growing sectors are not highly energy intensive. Examples of changes to the structure of the industry sector include the cessation of steel production in 2001, of fertiliser production in late 2002, and of sugar production in 2007.
The energy intensity of the economy will continue to decrease if, as expected, the economy becomes increasingly dominated by high value added, low energy-consuming sectors. This results in a more productive economy from an energy perspective but does not necessarily mean that the actual processes used are more energy efficient, or that less energy is being used overall in the economy.
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