Northern Ireland’s renewable electricity generation fell in 2024 from a peak in 2022.
The figures, from the Department for the Economy produced quarterly based on the previous 12-month period, show renewable generation accounted for 43.5% of Northern Ireland’s electricity use for full year 2024.
This is down from the record 51% in 2022, when 3.8GW was generated from renewable sources in Northern Ireland.
Steven Agnew (pictured), RenewableNI Director, said: “Northern Ireland is going from leaders to laggards.
“Today’s figures show we are going backwards and should be a warning alarm to policy makers.
“With wind being our main source of clean energy – 82 per cent, we can expect weather related variations.
“However, there is an enduring issue behind the recent trend.
“We are turning off renewable generation more often due to a lack of grid capacity, in a process known as ‘dispatch down’.
“In levels never before seen, dispatch down averaged 30% in 2024, double what could have reasonably been expected.
“This was largely driven by increased levels of imports from Scotland across the Moyle Interconnector.”
RenewableNI has set out options available to address the downward generation trend, which include the need to build the second North South Interconnector which could halve dispatch down levels by allowing NI to send more electricity to the Republic of Ireland where there is greater demand.
Others include timely delivery of the new renewable electricity support scheme.
It might seem counter intuitive to be building more renewables when we aren’t fully utilising current resources, however, more renewables sets lower prices so transitioning to export more often to GB rather than import.
Agnew said: “We now have a Programme for Government suggesting NI can be an energy exporter.
“The Executive need to work together to benefit the Northern Ireland consumer and environment.”