Electricity use hits record amid cold weather

Plummeting temperatures sent electricity use soaring to new records this week, according to national grid operator EirGrid.

Demand hit a record 5,577 megawatts (MW) at 5.50pm on Thursday as families and workers turned up the heat to combat the ongoing freeze, said the State company on Friday.

This topped peaks hit on Monday and Wednesday when the cold spell started to bite, and beat the record 5,544MW set on December 14th, 2022.

The average home uses 4.2MW hours of electricity a year, while the midsized gas-fired power plants that supply half the country’s electricity each have a capacity of about 400MW.

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While the cold weather drove consumption, the sunshine that accompanied it boosted solar generation to a peak of 249MW at 12.30pm on Wednesday.

Diarmaid Gillespie, EirGrid’s director of system operations, said dealing with demand had gone smoothly thanks to “good generation availability, interconnection imports from Britain and some wind generation”.

EirGrid expects more wind farms to generate electricity this weekend as temperatures rise and stormy weather hits Ireland.