The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has revealed that energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 2.1% in 2017 and were 18% below 2005 levels.

The agency's annual report also reveals:

• Ireland’s energy import dependency reduced from 88% in 2015 to 66% in 2017.
• Renewables made up 10.6% of gross final consumption, relative to a 2020 target of 16%. This avoided 4.1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions and €440m of fossil fuel imports.
• Renewable electricity generation accounted for 30% of gross electricity consumption. The use of renewables in electricity generation in 2017, reduced CO2 emissions by 3.3 Mt and avoided €280m in fossil fuel imports.
• Transport continues to dominate as the largest energy-consuming sector, with a 43% share of final consumption. Transport energy use increased by 2%.
• Industrial energy use increased by 3.4%, driven by a 7.6% increase in output as measured by value added.
• Residential energy use fell by 2.9%.
• The average household emitted 5.1 tonnes of CO2 of which 63% came from direct fuel use in the home and the remainder from electricity use. This is down from 8.4 tonnes in 2005.
• Final energy use in the commercial and public services sector increased by 4.2%.

SEAI chief executive Jim Gannon (pictured) commented:“SEAI’s grants have already supported energy efficiency improvements in 400,000 homes, which along with other measures like improved building regulations has resulted in the average energy used per dwelling in Ireland now being 30% lower than it was in 2005.

“The next phase of activity in the residential sector must be a rapid acceleration towards deeper retrofits using the technical, consumer, financial and supply chain learnings from SEAI’s deep retrofit and other programmes.

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“Government funded incentives of varying types have driven a rapid growth in electric car sales, doubling year on year since 2015. Ireland’s geographical extent makes it well suited to electric cars and, while not every driver can switch in the short term, we must ensure that it is considered a real option for the majority of new car purchases from now on.”

Gannon added: “2017 represented a record year of renewables in our electricity system, and Ireland is a world leader in the level of wind deployed on our grid. However, 70% of our electricity still comes from fossil fuel, with both coal and peat remaining features of our generation mix. We must continue to develop our own renewable energy sources.”

The Energy in Ireland 2018 report can be downloaded here.