Energy use up despite recession

Overall energy demand rose by 1.5 per cent in 2008 despite the economy contracting by three per cent last year, a report from Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) has revealed.

The report, Energy in Ireland 1990-2008, blamed the boost in demand on cold weather which increased heating and lead to an 8.8 per cent rise in energy use by householders and a 6.9 per cent rise in the commercial and public services sector. When climate factors are taken into consideration the rise drops to 3.3 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively.

SEI chief executive professor Owen Lewis said the report shows the need to continue to improve the energy performance of buildings and he lauded the Government for continuing "in these straightened times" to fund the home energies saving scheme which allows homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

“The logic of replacing money which we are sending off to oil and gas suppliers with jobs in Ireland to improve our buildings to reducing energy is very compelling,” Mr Lewis said.

The report found energy use linked to economic activity declined in 2008 in line with the slowdown - energy use in industry fell 5.4 per cent and transport 1.3 per cent. Mr Lewis said the decline was clearly the result of the recession.

“The key issue now is what will happen when we come out of this recession? It is critical that the return to economic growth is not matched by a corresponding growth in energy demand.

“The two must be fundamentally decoupled so that Ireland's future economic successes are not undermined by unsustainable energy use."

He said while there are no “overnight solutions” to reducing unsustainable energy usage in the transport sector there are a series of measures to help reach savings including driver behaviour and the introduction of electric vehicles in the long term.

“We can point to experience working with operators of fleets of coaches for instance that they have seen very substantial savings - improvements of around 20 per cent - basically through driver education,” he said.

He said minimising the use of brakes, anticipating traffic patterns and adjusting driving to suit can also help.

In the long term Mr Lewis said Ireland could provide a very interesting case study for developing the electrification of transport because of its size.

“We would be hoping that we would be an early mover in this area and I think Government policy is moving in that direction as well.

“It is going to take time we need the availability of the electric vehicles which are suitable for mass roll-out,” he added.

The report also found renewable energy use up by 21 per cent in 2008 with its contribution to gross electricity consumption now at 12 per cent, suggesting that Ireland is on track to meet the White Paper 2010 target of 15 per cent.

Overall, renewable energy represented 4.5 per cent of gross final energy use in 2008 and the estimated amount of avoided CO2 emissions from renewables was one and a half times the emissions from coal burned in Ireland in 2008.

However, imported oil and gas remained the dominant sources of fuel in 2008, accounting for 81 per cent of the country’s energy supply.