Ireland records new peak for electricity demand due to cold weather

Ireland recorded a new peak of 5639 MW for electricity demand at 5.28pm yesterday evening due to the cold weather, according to EirGrid. 

This all-time record peak breached the previous peak in electricity demand of 5577 MW recorded on 18 January 2024. 

EirGrid is responsible for operating, developing and enhancing the electricity grid and market in Ireland. It carries out the complex task of matching electricity supply to customer demand in real time from the National Control Centre in Dublin.

Electricity demand in the winter is heavily influenced by weather conditions. EirGrid’s analysis of Ireland’s peak demand over winter indicates that a 1°C decrease in outside temperature results in a 40 MW increase in peak demand (50 MW when wind-chill is taken into account).

Diarmaid Gillespie, Director of System Operations at EirGrid, said: “Ensuring there is sufficient generation to meet electricity demand is a challenging task, particularly during the colder winter months.

"Despite wind generation being low yesterday evening, we had good generation availability and strong interconnection imports from Great Britain, which ensured a sufficient buffer between electricity supply available and demand.

"Last month, we released our annual Winter Outlook which indicated that there is a significantly lower risk for System Alerts this winter, compared to what was anticipated last year, primarily due to new generation capacity now being available on the system.”