Ireland records 1,258 MW grid-scale solar generation peak ahead of eclipse

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.

Most of this renewable electricity comes from wind, but solar deployment has experienced very positive momentum. Irish developers PCRE, Harmony Solar and Activ8 to name a few are growing their project portfolios fast across their respective sectors and foreign developers such as ILOS, Perigus Energy (formerly Orsted) and Statkraft are committed to investments there.

“Just over 10 years ago there were 2 MW of solar in Ireland. Now there are over 2.6 GW,” O’Brien pointed out, adding that it is fitting record solar generation occurred the same week Europe witnessed “a historic solar eclipse” on Wednesday.

Europe’s TSOs expected the solar eclipse to temporarily reduce solar generation on August 12 but were not concerned about overall electricity supply.

In Ireland, EirGrid recorded a grid-scale generation peak of 1,090 MW at 1.45 p.m., ahead of the forecast peak at 1,038 MW.

At 6.15 p.m., when the moon moved across the sun, grid-scale solar was generating 532 MW. This fell to 202 MW by 6.45 p.m. and plummeted to 8 MW at the height of the eclipse 30 minutes later.

After the moon began moving away from the sun, grid-scale solar generation statistics showed gradual improvement, reaching 51 MW by 7.30 p.m. and 83 MW at 7.45 p.m.

Ronan Power, CEO of Solar Ireland, said that while the eclipse only lasted a couple of hours it gave “a lovely snapshot of the much bigger solar community that has developed across Ireland” as people became citizen scientists for the day tracking solar generation on their phones and commenting on the eclipse, encouraged by Solar Ireland’s campaign, which Power described as “a bit of fun” and an opportunity for people to share what their rooftop systems were generating throughout the event.

“You could actually see the eclipse in Ireland’s solar generation curve, which is quite remarkable,” said Power.