Electricity Consumption and Renewable Generation in Northern Ireland: Year Ending December 2020

The ‘Electricity Consumption and Renewable Generation in Northern Ireland: Year ending December 2020’ report details the percentage of electricity consumption in Northern Ireland generated from renewable sources and includes information on the type of renewable generation used. The report reflects performance against the 2011-15 Programme for Government target which was to “Encourage achievement of 20% of electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2015” and the Executive’s 2010-20 Strategic Energy Framework which included a target to achieve 40% of electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2020.

Main results:

• For the 12 month period January 2020 to December 2020, 49.2% of total electricity consumption in Northern Ireland was generated from renewable sources located in Northern Ireland. This represents an increase of 5.6 percentage points on the previous 12 month period (January 2019 to December 2019).
• In terms of the volume of electricity consumption between January 2020 and December 2020, some 7,416 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of total electricity was consumed in Northern Ireland. Over the same period, some 3,651 GWh was generated from renewable sources in Northern Ireland.
• Reflecting the impacts of Covid-19, the five lowest monthly electricity consumption volumes on record were recorded between April and August 2020.
• Of all renewable electricity generated within Northern Ireland over the 12 month period January 2020 to December 2020, 84.9% was generated from wind. This compares to 84.5% for the previous 12 month period (January 2019 to December 2019).
• For the 12 month period ending December 2020, non-wind renewable electricity generation in Northern Ireland was 551.9 GWh.

The full report is available on the Department's website.