Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 4 May 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Solar Energy and the Agricultural Industry: Discussion
Dr. John Upton:
I thank the Deputy for the question. We are getting technical. I will address consumption first. Dairy farms use approximately 400 GWh of electricity per year; pig farms use approximately 136 GWh per year and poultry farms use another 12 GWh or so. A total of 600 GWh or 700 GWh of electricity is used per year by those enterprises alone. The scale of what is required is about the same as what was submitted under the renewable electricity support scheme, RESS 1, of 700 GWh to 800 GWh per year.