Wind Energy Ireland has published their Annual Wind Energy Report for 2022, in which details of Ireland’s wind energy contribution to the National Grid are examined. Overall, it can be viewed as a very positive year for Ireland’s wind energy contributions, as 34% of Ireland’s electricity was generated from wind in 2022, the second-highest annual figure recorded to date. February and November can be singled out as the two most productive months for Ireland’s wind farms, as roughly 1,500 Gigawatt hours of energy were produced and supplied to the national grid for each of these months, respectively.
As well as contributing to our national targets regarding the production of energy from renewable sources and aiding in offsetting our national carbon footprint, the production of such a large share of our energy demand from wind led to a drop in the average price of electricity per megawatt hour. On days when there was the most wind energy produced in Ireland and supplied into the National Grid, electricity was priced at up to 39.6% less than on days when most of the electricity in the National Grid was supplied from non-renewable sources.
The future of wind energy in Ireland is looking increasingly brighter, as in 2022, a total of 280MW of new wind farms were connected to the National Grid in 2022, with more to follow in 2023.