The Irish Wind Energy Association and its members will mark Global Wind Day 2019 with a host of community events and open days on wind farms across Ireland. Celebrating the contribution wind energy makes in Ireland’s fight against climate change the annual awareness day is a popular milestone in the calendar. IWEA recently published the first of what will be regular quarterly reports on the performance of the industry and revealed that wind provided 37 per cent of Ireland’s electricity in the first quarter of 2019.

'Best Quarter One performance ever'

Dr David Connolly, CEO of the Irish Wind Energy Association, said: “This is our best Quarter One performance ever. We had a very strong start to the year for wind energy, particularly in February when energy produced the most electricity, even surpassing natural gas, so we hope to build on this in the coming months. “Wind energy is an Irish success story, driving down electricity costs for consumers, cutting millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions every year and securing a homegrown energy future that doesn’t depend on importing fossil fuels.” The 37 per cent share of electricity demand amounted to more than 2.8 million MWh of electricity, compared to 2.7 million in the first quarter of 2018. The average Irish household uses approximately 4.5 MWh of electricity every year. The total installed capacity of Ireland’s wind farms has now risen to 3,700 MW, approximately enough to power 2.2 million Irish homes annually.

Key statistics

1. Wind energy’s share of electricity demand: 37 per cent – up from 35 per cent in Q1 2018 2. Total amount of electricity generated by wind in Q1 2019: 2,827,067 MWh – up from 2,731,000 MWh in Q1 2018. 3. Total installed wind energy capacity at end of Q1 2019: 3,700 MW. 4. Number of new wind farms built: two 5. Total new capacity installed: 33 MW. 6. Amount of wind energy dispatched down in Q1 2019: 207,839 MWh To mark Global Wind Day IWEA also runs a photo competition calling for images of Irish wind farms taken in the last two years – there is still time to enter by visiting https://www.iwea.com/latest-news/2187-global-wind-day-enter-our-photo-comp There is a €500 one-for-all gift voucher up for grabs for the winning entry. Pictured throughout this article are some of the entries so far.