Ireland has made considerable progress in decarbonising our electricity sector over the last decade, with a major reason for this being the construction of renewable generation sources and their successful integration onto the grid. Ireland is in the top five globally for installed wind power capacity per capita and is a world leader in the integration of variable renewable electricity onto the grid.
Ireland currently has approximately 5.2 GW of renewable generation capacity connected to the grid.
While the majority of this, circa 4.5 GW, is onshore wind, solar generation is a growing source of electricity and is rapidly transforming Ireland's energy system. There is now over 700 MW of solar generation in Ireland and continued delivery of these technologies at scale will be critical to meeting our renewable energy and climate targets.
These increases in renewable electricity generation capacities are facilitated by key Government policies such as the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) and the Microgeneration Support Scheme (MSS), with the Small-Scale Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (SRESS) to be launched shortly. These supports provide crucial support to renewable generators of varying sizes and types, from large scale commercial energy producers to community projects and domestic producers.
