A new set of figures from the Central Statistics Office show that renewable fuels produced 42% of metered electricity in October but more fossil fuels were used to meet peak evening demand.
The CSO's new Metered Electricity Generation figures - published for the first time today - show the amount of metered electricity generated in each half-hour period classified by the main fuel used in each power plant to generate the electricity.
A total of 2.4 million MWh of metered electricity was generated in October, down 12.7% on the October 2022 figure of 2.7 million MWh.
Today's figures show that natural gas and wind produced 84% of metered electricity generation in October as they dominated the generation of electricity here.
Natural gas and wind power often move in opposite directions so that on days where a high proportion of electricity is generated from wind, there is a substantial decrease in the amount generated from natural gas.
In October, gas accounted for 48% of metered electricity generation while wind made up 36%. The overall rates for the months from January to October were 49% for gas and 37% for wind power.
Today's CSO figures also reveal that metered electricity generation from solar farms increased from 20,120 megawatt-hours (MWh) in 2022 to 405,779 MWh in the months from January to October of this year.
June was the month with most generation from solar farms with 68,120 MWh.
Meanwhile, for the first 10 months of 2023, there were 696,504 MWh of metered electricity generated from rivers with January seeing the highest level of generation at 120,910 MWh.
The CSO noted that for the first 10 months of 2023, metered electricity generated from rivers, or hydro power, was the fourth highest fuel source for metered electricity generation and exceeded that of solar farms during January to April and for August to October.
The CSO said today the monthly half-hourly evening period in October with the highest metered electricity generation figure was between 6.30pm and 7pm when it was 59,963 MWh.
The monthly half-hourly period with the lowest metered electricity generation was 37,377 MWh between 3.30am and 4am, it added.
Meanwhile, the half-hourly periods between 2am and 4.30am were when the highest monthly proportion of renewable metered electricity was generated at 47%, while the half-hourly periods between 7.30am and 9.30am and between 5.30pm and 7pm were when the lowest monthly renewable fuel share at 37% was recorded, today's CSO figures show.
