Gas generated 42% of Ireland's electricity in April, new figures from Gas Network Ireland show today.
After a notably windy period in February and March, gas was the most dominant contributor to electricity generation last month as it surpassed wind energy's contribution of 36%.
Gas Network Ireland said that gas was the primary source of electricity in ten of the 12 months last year.
It noted that the 42% of electricity generated by gas in April represented a monthly increase from 36% in March, but a substantial decrease year-on-year from the 47% figure recorded for April of last year.
Sectoral demand for gas was also down both on a monthly and an annual basis across a number of industries.
Monthly decreases were recorded across the construction (-16%), education (-15%), leisure/sport arenas (-18%), office (-17%), retail (-11%), air travel (-28%), hotel (-23%) and residential (-28%) sectors.
Meanwhile, annual decreases were also recorded across the air travel (-29%), hotel (-18%), and retail (-10%) sectors.
Gas Networks Ireland's Director of Strategy and Regulation, Edwina Nyhan, said that wind contributions peaked at 81% in April but given the variable nature of weather dependent renewable energy sources, there were also times in the month when the wind supply dropped almost completely and contributed less than 1%of electricity generation.
"As is typical of Ireland's evolving energy mix, gas remained a consistent backup through periods of low wind. While during isolated periods of extreme bad weather, such as Storm Kathleen, wind energy's contributions to electricity generation were particularly high," she added.
