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Which Dublin residential areas use the most and least electricity?
Analysis: The latest CSO report on electricity consumption in Ireland highlights some interesting facts about usage across the capital and country
Electricity consumption in Irish households is up across the board, with every county in the country showing an increase. But in 2024, it was the Dublin postal districts that had the highest proportion of residential consumption at 19%, followed by Cork (12%), Dublin County (6%), Galway (6%), and Kildare (5%).
This is according to the latest report on metered electricity consumption from the Central Statistics Office. This found that both residential and non-residential consumption saw a rise of 4% overall between 2023 and 2024, while Urban Residential grew by 5%, and Rural Residential by 3%.
Within the Dublin postal districts, Dublin 15 (10%), Dublin 24 (9%) and Dublin 18 (6.5%) had the highest proportions of residential electricity consumption, while Dublin 2 (1.9%), Dublin 10 (1.6%) and Dublin 20 (1.3%) had the lowest.
Dublin 15, which covers Ashtown, Blanchardstown, Castleknock, Coolmine, Clonsilla, Corduff, Mulhuddart, Tyrrelstown, Ongar, and Clonee (County Meath), used a total of 172 Gigwatt hours (GWh). Dublin 24, covering Firhouse, Jobstown, Old Bawn, Tallaght, parts of Ballymount, Saggart, Rathcoole and Brittas, consumed 152GWh.
While residential electricity consumption was up across all Dublin postal districts between 2023 and 2024, figures from the last decade do reflect some fluctuations in our electricity usage. Overall, usage rose to a peak in 2020 and 2021 during Covid, when many were working from home, and then fell in all areas between 2021 and 2022, when energy prices also skyrocketed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. When looking at usage in any given year, the weather, naturally, has an impact (2015, for example, was a very cold year, as was 2024).
Because there are so many factors that feed into consumption, it's difficult to draw definitive conclusions on what's behind any changes in individual Dublin postal districts, says Orla McCarthy, Senior Statistician with the CSO's Climate & Energy Division. One factor is the percentage of BER A-rated homes in a postal district, as they use electricity as their main fuel but are also more energy efficient.
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The CSO also notes that the postal district could be extracted from the routing key where an Eircode was available. In other cases, there was uncertainty between some postal districts being derived from the street name. Hence the coding at this level should be regarded as only broadly correct.
Looking at the total consumption in Dublin postal code areas, McCarthy highlights that it has decreased marginally between 2015 and 2024. At the same time, the number of properties has increased, and the number of properties in Dublin whose main space heating fuel is electricity has increased, implying an "overall reduction" in the use of electricity.
Looking at the country overall, median residential electricity consumption rose by 2.3% in 2024 compared with 2023, with all counties showing an increase. Counties with the lowest median residential consumption in 2024 included Donegal (2,650 kWh), Leitrim (2,700 kWh), and Mayo (2,867 kWh), while Kildare recorded the highest median figure at 3,845 kWh, followed by Meath at 3,753kWh. The CSO explains the median can be regarded as typical usage as it is not influenced by outliers in the same way that the mean or average is.
Around 10% of residential customers consumed less than 1,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2024, significantly less than the median consumption of 3,246 kWh. Low consumption levels can indirectly indicate factors such as vacant properties, holiday homes, or energy poverty, and are also influenced by dwelling size and energy efficiency, the CSO said.
Overall in 2024, total metered electricity consumption reached 31,903 GWh a 4.3% increase compared with 2023. Non-residential consumption constituted the largest share at 72% of the total. Urban and Rural Residential customers accounted for 18% and 10% respectively, the figures show.
Large energy users, which include data centres, used 31% of metered electricity consumption in 2024, up from 30% in 2023. The proportion of electricity used by data centres continues to rise and represents over a fifth of all consumption in Ireland. In 2015, data centres accounted for 5% of consumption, rising to 21% in 2023 and 22% in 2024. Quarterly metered electricity consumption by data centres increased steadily from 290 GWh in the first quarter of 2015 to 1,829 GWh in the fourth quarter of 2024. Between 2023 and 2024, metered electricity consumption by data centres increased by 10% from 6,335GWh to 6,969 GWh.
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Elsewhere, the CSO release noted there were 1.9 million residential customers with smart meters by the end of 2024, which is 83% of all residential meters. There was a 10% increase in the number of residential meters between 2015 and 2024, and the highest increases were in counties adjacent to Dublin City, with residential meters in Kildare and Meath both up by 19%. On the subject of electric cars, metered electricity consumption by stand-alone Electric Vehicles (EV) charge points rose by 43% from 23 GWh in 2023 to 33 GWh in 2024.
