Wind fuelled three quarters of our power last month

WIND generated up to three quarters of electricity at times last month – nearing record levels, new figures show.

The arrival of seasonally colder weather in October, meanwhile, drove a 29% rise in residential gas demand compared to September as people turned their heating on.

Demand from small businesses also rose a significant 106% during the month as heating was turned up in workplaces across the country, according to figures released by Gas Networks Ireland yesterday.

The enormous amount of wind-generated power was hailed by Green Party energy spokesman Brian Leddin TD.

‘That amount is absolutely brilliant, Ireland is leading the way in the rollout of wind energy and we have incredibly ambitious plans in that area,’ he said.

‘So while we’re at 75% instantaneously now, what we want by 2030 is greater than 70% on average across the year... The other thing is we want to push beyond that again because we haven’t really touched on our off-shore resource, there’s multiple potential there versus our land resource.’

Although high, 75% is not a record. Wind generation here has hit up to 90% of electricity production.

A spokesman for EirGrid, which carries the supply around the country, said: ‘Ideally we want to be in a position where we can use all that electricity but there are technical issues around it that we are going to be working on over the coming years.’

Gas demand was up across the economy but soared in transport by 29%, partly because the second public compressed natural gas station at the Circle K garage in Cashel, Co. Tipperary, opened.

Located at Junction 8 off the M8 DublinCork motorway, the state- of-the-art station has the capacity to fill 50 HGVs a day.

However, while overall gas demand rose 1% in October, it was down 6% on the same month last year.