Consumption of electricity in rural Ireland rose by 10.2% in 2020, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Its report on electricity usage for 2020, published this week, revealed that rural residential tariffs consumed 3,220 gigawatt hours in 2020, compared to 2,923 in 2019.
Interestingly, the report shows that the amount of electricity used by homes in rural Ireland is approximately the same as that used by data centres.
Reminder!
A kilowatt hour (kWh) is a unit of energy equivalent to one kilowatt of power sustained over an hour. A gigawatt hour (gWh) is equivalent to one million kWh.
The CSO data shows that between 2015 and 2020 electricity consumed by these centres more than doubled from 5%to 11% – just below the rural usage of 12% in 2020.
Total metered electricity consumption in 2020 was 27,056gWh, an increase of 2.1% when compared to 2019.
Of the total consumption in 2020, 21% was demanded by large customers.
There were decreases in consumption across all non-residential groups, except the large customer groups, which increased by 9.3% according to the CSO.
This group comprises a small number of customers such as the largest data centres and the highest electricity consumers in other business sectors such as IT and cement manufacturing.
The consumption of the large customer groups increased by 54% between 2015 and 2020.
Seasonal and county
On a quarterly basis, the main seasonal variation was in the residential sector with 29% of consumption in 2020 in the first quarter compared with 22% in the third quarter.
Dublin postal districts had the highest proportion of residential consumption in 2020 with 18.7%.
Cork (12%), Dublin county (6.9%), Galway (5.7%), and Kildare (4.6%) were the next highest.
Counties with dwellings using electricity as their main space heating fuel, as well as number of meters, are likely to be the main underlying factors determining residential demand.
Lowest consumption
Donegal (2,896kWh), Leitrim (2,945kWh), and Roscommon (3,162kWh) had the lowest median residential consumption in 2020.
Kildare, with 4,224kWh, had the highest figure.
There were 2.1 million residential meters in 2020 – these include some small non-residential consumption such as newsagents and farms.
According to the CSO, electricity consumption can be used as an indirect indicator of vacant and holiday dwellings.
Around 10% of residential customers consumed fewer than 1,000kWh in 2020, which was well below the median of 3,658kWh.