The new all-time, all-island high for wind output on the Irish grid is 4629MW, set at 4pm on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 6 2023.

Wind generation in Northern Ireland peaked at 803MW at 11.30am while wind generation in the south peaked at 3846MW at 1pm - also a new record there.

For the day as a whole, 91.4GWh was generated from wind power which was equivalent to 70.1% of electricity demand. Only on six previous days has more than 91.4GWh been generated from wind.

14.5GWh - or almost exactly 10% of the day's generation (from all sources) - was exported to Britain.

Demand and generation breakdown for 6 December 2023 Source: Green Collective; EirGrid

From examining the proportion of wind comprising total generation, it seems there is further room for improvement. Currently, up to 75% of generation on the Irish grid can come from inverter-based resources such as wind and solar. Wind generation yesterday peaked at approx. 68% of generation in the morning. Although we are still waiting on yesterday's solar figures to be released, we do not expect solar to have accounted for 7% of all generation at that time of day.

Share of wind in total generation for 6 December 2023 Source: Green Collective; EirGrid

The previous record holder was Saturday, February 5 2022, when all-island wind generation reached 4585MW at 1.15pm. As can be seen in the chart below, demand on that day was significantly lower than the new record holder. Yesterday's raised "ceiling" (determined by weather, interconnector flow, generation, and demand) allowed for more wind generation technically; indeed, as wind generation made up at most 68% of generation yesterday, we do wonder why it did not grow even more. We will be looking into dispatch down data and plant-level generation for a deeper dive. Stay tuned!

Demand and generation breakdown for 5 February 2022 Source: Green Collective; EirGrid