Ireland has deployed around 680 MW of solar power spread across 59,888 generators to date, according to a new report from the Irish Solar Energy Association.
Most of this capacity originates from seven large-scale plants surpassing 5 MW, totaling 349 MW, and 208 MW from microgeneration solar arrays, encompassing systems up to 12 kW. Small-scale ground-mounted PV plants for self-consumption account for another 95 MW, while mini-generation systems ranging from 12 kW to 50 kW contribute 5 MW.
Ireland currently operates 22 MW of utility-scale systems (ranging from 1 MW to 5 MW), 0.3 MW of systems ranging from 200 kW to 1 MW, and 0.54 MW of systems with a capacity between 50 kW and 200 kW.
“By the end of 2023, ESB Networks forecasts almost 1 GW of solar will have connected from domestic rooftop to utility-scale solar projects,” the association said in a statement. “This makes the solar industry the fastest growing renewable power source in Ireland.”
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Ireland supports rooftop PV operating under its net metering scheme, via a rebate program. The scheme is designed to deploy around 380 MW of solar capacity.
The country also supports large-scale solar via an auction mechanism. In the first renewables auction, the Irish authorities allocated 796 MW of generating capacity. The average weighted bid price for the technology-neutral auction was €0.07408 ($0.08)/kWh.
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Direct link to the report:
https://www.irishsolarenergy.org/_files/ugd/dcb342_ff637a6960104140a73e6dd2b850ad88.pdf
The number of microgenerators (under 6 kW) is lower in the report than in reality since not all grid connected microgenerators are registered with the grid utility ESB-Network.
The total output of all PV installations and their grid support is only estimated.