Oil and gas consumption increased in Ireland last year amid the country’s sluggish switch from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The rise was modest – 2.7 per cent for oil and 3 per cent for gas – but signals significant challenges for the country in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A small reduction in emissions from overall energy use – 1.5 per cent – was achieved but that was mainly because more electricity was imported from Britain.
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) warned the reduction was happening “at a rate that is short of what is needed”.
Despite Government assertions that economic growth has been decoupled from emissions, SEAI chief executive William Walsh sounded a more cautious note.
“We haven’t broken the link between economic development and fossil fuels in a structural, meaningful way yet, and that is a concern,” he said.
The figures are in the SEAI’s annual Energy in Ireland report published on Wednesday.
They show data centres are a key pressure, their demand for electricity growing by 10 per cent last year which is faster than renewable power could expand to meet it.
Data centres are responsible for 88 per cent of the total growth in electricity demand over the past 10 years.
Mr Walsh called for careful planning around future growth.
“We need to ensure that we are strategic with energy consumption and growth in our national decision-making,” he said. “This is critical if we are to make headway with efforts to reduce our energy demand overall and increase the share of that demand met through renewable technology.”
The wider economy and society remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels, the report shows. Diesel and petrol made up 93 per cent of the fuels needed for transport last year. Oil and gas provided 90 per cent of the heat needed to keep homes warm and factories operating.
Fossil fuels generated just over 45 per cent of electricity used while wind, solar, biofuels and imports provided the rest.
Imports via the undersea electricity interconnectors supplied 14 per cent of electricity and SEAI expects that to rise to over 16 per cent this year.
Emissions associated with imported electricity are not counted here.
Mr Walsh stressed there were positive signs, with emissions falling despite a growing population, showing some policies were having the desired effect.
“We’re making progress, but we must accelerate delivery of renewables and major infrastructure such as grid enhancements, public transport and district heating (using waste heat),” he said.
The report says, however: “In 2024, both the use of oil and gas in Ireland’s energy supply increased faster than its renewable energy supply.”
It also shows that electricity generation and transport will overshoot their five-year carbon budgets that end this month.
Further overshoots over the next five years will hinder Ireland’s ability to meet the national target of halving overall emissions by 2030.
The electricity overshoot is small but the transport overshoot is significant and both have a much smaller budget allocated to them for 2026-2030.
The slow expansion of renewable fuels and electricity will also hamper efforts to meet the binding EU target of having renewables meet 43 per cent of all energy needs by 2030.
Renewables met just 16 per cent of energy needs last year.
In another example of the outsized impact of certain sectors of the economy, Ireland took delivery of more fuel for flights than for heavy goods vehicles last year and demand by aviation is believed to have grown another 5 per cent this year.