Ireland recorded a new peak of 5639MW for electricity demand yesterday evening (Wednesday, November 20) at 5:28p.m, according to EirGrid.
This all-time record peak breached the previous peak in electricity demand of 5577MW recorded on January 18, 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, according to Eirgrid.
The peak in electricity demand follows a slump in temperatures over the last few days, with the whole country entering a Status Yellow low temperature and ice warning, along with snow accumulating in many counties.
EirGrid’s analysis of Ireland’s peak demand over winter indicates that a 1°C decrease in outside temperature results in a 40MW increase in peak demand (50MW when wind-chill is taken into account).
EirGrid
Director of system operations at EirGrid, Diarmaid Gillespie 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,” Gillespie added.
EirGrid’s winter outlook inidicates 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.
There does still remains a risk that the system will enter an amber alert at times, most likely at periods of low wind and low interconnector imports. The risk is much lower than the previous winter, according to the outlook.
Emergency protocols are in place with large energy users that would mitigate the impact on homes and businesses, where sufficient notice of an event can be provided (minimum of 1 hour).