National Energy Balance 2024 | Social Justice Ireland

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has published the Interim 2024 National Energy Balance. This report provides details on the supply and transformation of Ireland's national energy portfolio and demand in difference sectors. The Interim report has identified a number of key trends in Ireland’s energy use in the past year including: an increase in Ireland’s overall energy requirement, an increase in fossil fuel use, and an increase in energy import dependency.

Interim 2024 National Energy Balance

The Energy Balance is used to determine Ireland's results against national and European targets on renewable energy share (RES), and our targets mandated by the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) as well as inputting into the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory. In addition to providing insights into Ireland's energy landscape, the Energy Balance is a key input into the EPA's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory.

Trends in Ireland's Energy Supply

Ireland's overall energy requirement in 2024 was up 2.3%, with increases in oil, natural gas, renewables, and electricity.
Despite drops in coal and peat, Ireland's overall use of fossil fuels increased by 0.7% in 2024.
Fossil fuels continue to account for over four-fifths (81.4%) of Ireland's energy supply.
Almost half (48.9%) of Ireland's energy comes from imported fossil fuel oil products.
Ireland's energy import dependency was 79.7% in 2024, up from 78.3% in 2023 (for comparison, the EU average for 2023 was 58.3%).
Ireland imported 100% of its oil, 79.5% of its gas, and 14.0% of its electricity in 2024.

Trends in Ireland's Energy-Related Emissions

Ireland's energy related emissions in 2024 were down 1.3% on 2023, and are at their lowest level in over 30 years.
Energy-related emissions have fallen each year for the last 3 years, and are down 11% on 2021-levels.
SEAI estimates that electricity sector emissions in 2024 were down 7.5% on 2023.
SEAI estimates that the transport sector emissions in 2024 were down 1.2% on 2023.
SEAI estimates that emissions from heating were up 2.4% in 2024.

Trends in Ireland's Renewable Energy

Renewable energy supplied 14.5% of Ireland's energy requirements, up slightly from 14.0% in 2023.
2024 saw increases in Biomass, Bioliquids, Solar-PV, and Ambient Heat from heat-pumps, but drops in Wind and Hydro generation.
Electricity generation from Solar-PV was up by 66% in 2024.
Renewable ambient heat from heat-pumps was up by 19% in 2024.

Trends in Ireland's Electricity Supply

Ireland needed 4.1% more electricity supply in 2024 than in 2023.
Despite adding renewable generation capacity in 2024, the overall share of renewable generation in the electricity supply in 2024 was 39.6%, down from 40.7% in 2023.
Ireland imported 14.0% of its electricity across international interconnectors in 2024, up from 9.5% in 2023.
After electricity generation from natural gas (42.1%) and wind (31.7%), net imports of electricity across interconnectors were the third largest source of electricity supply in 2024.

Social Justice Ireland view

Despite progress in generating renewable energy, Ireland is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels for energy as the SEAI report points out. This runs contrary to our targets of reducing emissions, increasing renewable energy, and eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels. Renewables made up 14.5 per cent of final energy consumption, an increase on previous years, but still below our targets of 45 per cent by 2030 as set out in the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP). Our reliance on imported electricity via interconnectors from the United Kingdom is also having a distorting effect on emissions reductions from electricity, as the emissions associated with this electricity are counted as part of UK emissions and are not part of the inventory for electricity emissions in Ireland. This has the potential to cause complacency as current emissions reduction progress in electricity is not as the result of policy change, and should the way imported electricity emissions are accounted for change, then that would present substantial challenges to Ireland.

Increasing our share of renewable energy must be an immediate policy and investment priority and we welcome the commitments on renewables in the Programme for Government. An OECD Environmental Review of Ireland (OECD, 2021) recommends that Ireland gradually remove remaining tax exemptions and rebates that encourage wasteful fuel use in agriculture, fishery, heating and transport. A review of fossil fuel subsidies is a vital first step. The value of fossil fuel subsidies in Ireland is substantial (€4.9bn in 2023). These subsidies should be wound down over a three year periods with the savings invested renewables, renewable energy infrastructure, community resilience building and climate mitigation and adaptation.