Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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171. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will provide an update on progress towards meeting the target of 5% electricity demand reduction at peak time per Article 4 of Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 of 6 October 2022 on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices. [22730/23]

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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172. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will provide update on progress towards meeting the target of 10% gross electricity demand reduction per Article 3 of Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 of 6 October 2022 on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices. [22731/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 171 and 172 together.

Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices sets out two obligations on Member States to achieve reductions in electricity demand consumption:

1.To endeavour to reduce overall electricity consumption in the period November 2022 to March 2023 by 10% (compared to the average of the previous five years over the same period) and,

2.To reduce peak electricity consumption in the period December 2022 to March 2023 by 5% (compared to forecasted consumption). This target is mandatory.

Under the Regulation, Ireland is obliged to report to the European Commission on its performance towards achieving the two targets described above.

For the first target, overall electricity consumption increased by c. 6% for the target period compared to the historical reference period. It is worth considering however the reference period for this target is one of comparatively lower demand as Ireland’s energy demand profile has increased in recent years. This makes achieving reductions in an Irish context particularly challenging in contrast to other Member States who have constant or declining consumption profiles over the past five years.

For the second target, there was an overall decrease of c.7% during peak times compared to projected consumption for this period.

It should be noted that the key difference between the overall target (which Ireland has not achieved) and the mandatory peak target (which Ireland has achieved) is that the former is compared to a historic baseline whereas the latter is against projections.

My Department will in the coming weeks publish on Gov.ie the measures pursued in order to comply with this aspect of the regulation along with recent data on electricity demand.