The solar coaster came to Ireland this week as EirGrid recorded an all-time high peak generation followed two days later by generation lows of 8 MW during the historic solar eclipse on August 12.
The sun doesn’t normally have a very busy week in Ireland but a record-breaking generation day for solar on the national grid followed two days later by a solar eclipse made this week different.
Data from Irish transmission systems operator (TSO) EirGrid showed grid-scale solar generation peaked at 1,258 MW just before 1 p.m. on Tuesday, 11 August – the highest level recorded so far. During that time, solar accounted for around a third of all electricity usage nationally.
“This new daily peak comes on the back of EirGrid’s most recent monthly report – showing that July was a record month for solar energy in Ireland,” said Irish Minister for Climate, Energy, and the Environment, Darragh O’Brien.
“We currently have over 8 GW of renewable electricity generation capacity connected to the network. To put that into perspective, we have added approximately 5 GW of new renewable electricity generation capacity in just ten years,” he said.
