Ireland's total energy demand increased by almost 5% last year, mainly due to a continued rebound of transport activity after the Covid pandemic.
2022 also marked the first year that renewable energy production exceeded that of fossil fuels here.
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's Final Energy Balance for 2022 report also shows that a more significant increase was avoided through a reduction in household heating demand.
The SEAI said it believes the 12% reduction in energy demand in the residential sector is due to a combination of high energy prices, the post Covid return to office, home efficiency improvements, a switch to renewables and some weather effects.
Today's report also reveals that while energy demand increased, energy-related emissions were 1.8% lower than the previous year.
This was due to reduced heat demand and a lower carbon intensity of electricity generation.
Looking at indigenous energy production only, the SEAI noted that 2022 was the first year that renewable energy production exceeded that of fossil fuels.
Ireland's overall renewable energy share last year was 13.1%, it added.
Margie McCarthy, SEAI's Director of Research and Policy Insights, said that a trajectory of increasing energy demand is incompatible with the country's EU energy efficiency obligations, which require substantial net reductions in energy demand by 2030.
"Equally concerning is that, despite the net decrease in energy-related emissions, the trajectories for all sectoral emissions ceilings in the first carbon budget are well off track," she said.
"We have already used almost half our allowances in the first two years of a five-year period," she noted.
Ms McCarthy said that the country's renewable energy share still falls well short of a 2020 target of 16%.
"We are now so far behind the correct trajectory to reach our 2030 target that we need an unprecedented increase of Ireland's renewable energy share to the end of this decade," she cautioned.
"It's critical that we reduce current planning and development lead times for establishment of climate essential infrastructure, like on and off-shore wind turbines, grid scale solar PV, associated grid development and district heating," she added.
