From Greencollective
I think this 29% figure (1207MW out of ) is actually close to 50% of the electricity in Ireland.
In Ireland small scale solar is shown as a fall in demand. the metrics measure solar farms and small scale production is used on site or locally and not shown in the full supply figures only in demand reductions.
"Of the cumulative solar capacity, 1,322 MW comes from utility-scale solar plants and 727 MW from distributed microgeneration. Total mini-generation and small-scale commercial are also growing, at 74 MW and 53 MW respectively"
Total hidden: ~854 MW or 65% of the solar farms capacity. That means if farms were producing 1207 smaller were probably around 784MW.
Total imports at the time were 966MW all from the UK. The UK at the time was 43.4% Solar so thats 419.24MW
To add these up
Irish grid-scale solar=1223
Solar-originated imports=419
Hidden Irish embedded solar=784
Total~2,426 MW
Demand at the time was 4101 MW.
So 4101+784 hidden demand= 4855 MW
2426/4855=50%
Domestic solar is not as well maintained or situated as farms so them being 65% of farms is probably optimistic. But if they are less that also reduces the hidden demand they satisfy so the total % does not drop fast.
We are not in May yet which means we have a month and a half of natural increases in solar radiation to come. Which will move the calculation to barely getting to 50% with some optimistic figures well past it if the weather is good.
The annual near 30% increase in solar means that the output of a good weekend day in 2026 becomes a weekday in 2027, becomes an ok day in 2028. At which points grid batteries become the most important way to reduce usage of fossil fuels.
Ireland is the likely the worst country in the world for solar. Which means if we are reaching this point not everyone else is in a potentially better situation.
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