Wind and solar farms saved Irish electricity customers €840m since 2000, according to new analysis published by Baringa.
Wind farms were credited with just under 98% of these net savings with solar sites contributing the remainder.
The report, entitled Good for your Pocket: How renewable energy helps Irish electricity consumers, finds that, even based on conservative estimates, the financial benefit of developing renewable energy has significantly outweighed all possible costs for consumers.
Ireland’s wind generation capacity has grown since 2000 from 117MW to more than 5000MW installed across the country, and more than 600MW of solar generation has been connected in recent years.
Last year, according to data from Green Collective, nearly 40% of the country’s electricity came from renewables.
This scaling up of renewable energy sources since 2000 has also cut Irish spending on fossil fuels by €7.4bn and prevented the production of more than 47 million tonnes of CO2 up to the end of 2023.
Launching the report at the Wind Energy Ireland Annual Conference, which takes place today and tomorrow, Noel Cunniffe, chief executive of the representative organisation, said: “What Good for your Pocket shows is that every single wind turbine we build, and every set of solar panels we install, helps Irish families and businesses to save money.
“Since 2021 alone, renewables have displaced almost €4bn worth of fossil fuels, insulating Irish consumers from the very worst of the impacts of the fossil fuel energy crisis. However, we should still be paying less.
“As long as we maintain our dependency on imported gas, we are letting the price we pay for electricity be dictated to us by international fossil fuel companies.
“Every hour, Ireland is spending €1m to import fossil fuels, but there is a viable alternative, a way to keep this money at home.
“We can build more wind and solar farms, reinforce our electricity grid, electrify our heat and transport systems and work with our EU partners to reform the common electricity market.
“The incoming Government can save Irish consumers millions of euros, while also ensuring a clean, secure, domestic energy supply and creating thousands of jobs.”
The report also predicts that, if gas prices remain high and if Ireland reaches the target of 80% renewable electricity set out in the Climate Action Plan, consumer bills could fall by a further €610m from 2030.
Cunniffe added: “The next five years present an opportunity to make unprecedented progress in moving to relying on locally produced renewable energy and accelerating the next phase of Ireland’s economic development.
“By 2030 we can deliver cleaner and more affordable power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Ireland and lay the foundation for Irish energy independence.”