Electricity demand spikes seen during major sporting events in July

Ireland’s electricity grid recorded spikes in demand during some of the summer’s biggest sporting events, data from transmission system operator EirGrid shows.

Last month’s All-Ireland football and hurling finals both saw increases of around 80 megawatts (MW) in electricity demand at points during the GAA showpiece events.

The biggest increase during both games was seen at half time, with demand rising again by 70 MW after the end of the first 70 minutes during Clare and Cork’s pulsating encounter in the hurling final. 

A further spike of 60 MW was seen shortly following the trophy presentation in the Armagh v Galway football final.

Peak electricity demand on both Sundays stood at between 3650 MW and 3750 MW, with usage rising noticeably during brief time windows corresponding with stoppages in play during the games as other appliances such as kettles are switched on.

A further spike of around 80 MW was seen shortly after full time in the European Championships football final between Spain and England. 

Other major events which did not feature defined breaks and which took place over either a shorter timespan, such as Olympic races involving Ireland’s swimming medallists Mona McSharry and Daniel Wiffen, or over a longer period such as the Olympics opening ceremony, did not reflect the same defined spikes in activity.

EirGrid operates and manages Ireland’s high-voltage transmission system, with electricity then taken from the transmission system and supplied to properties including homes and businesses through the distribution system, operated by ESB Networks.

Latest provisional data published by EirGrid today shows that 28.7% of electricity used in Ireland during the month of July came from renewable sources.

The amount of electricity generated from grid-scale solar¹ reached another new peak of 118 GWh (gigawatt hours) across the month, meeting 4.5% of electricity demand, up from the previous record of just over 100 GWh in June.

July also saw a number of new peaks recorded for grid-scale solar activity for a one-minute period, with a series of records set and subsequently broken between 25 July (663 MW) and 31 July (733 MW) July. 

Gigawatt hours (GWh) values reflect energy usage over a longer period of time, while Megawatt (MW) values reflect point-in-time peaks.

More than 21.5% of all electricity used in July² came from windfarms, with total generation of 569 GWh for the month. The remainder of the 28.7% renewables total came from a range of other sources including hydropower and biomass.

Overall electricity system demand³ stood at 2,647 GWh for July.

Gas generation accounted for 44.6% of all electricity used over the month, with 20% being imported via interconnection, 5.5% coming from coal, and the remaining 1% from other sources⁴.

EirGrid is responsible for leading Ireland's transition to a low carbon future so that 80% of electricity can come from renewables by 2030, as set out in Government targets.

Diarmaid Gillespie, Director of System Operations at EirGrid, said: "Solar power had another strong month on the electricity grid in July, and this trend will be of increasing importance over the coming years so that we can rely on a reasonably steady supply of renewables at different times of the year."

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¹ Not including rooftop (embedded) solar.

² Average Fuel Mix is a representation of the System Generation fuel mix and net imports across the power system. The “Renewables” category includes wind, solar, hydro and biomass sources. It excludes some non-centrally monitored generation (such as small scale combined heat and power and microgeneration).

³ System demand represents the electricity production required to meet national electricity consumption, including system losses, but net of generators' requirements.

⁴ The “Other” category includes Peat, Distillate, Combined Heat and Power (CHP), Aggregated Generating Units (AGUs) and Demand Side Units (DSUs). Waste is split 50% between the “Other” and “Renewable” categories.