Inspired by the Climate Stripes, also known as Warming Stripes, we would like to present the Renewable Stripes, with a Christmas flair! They show the change over 10 years in the share of renewables in all-island electricity generation, from 1 January 2014 to the morning of Christmas Eve 2023. These stripes turn from mainly red to mainly green in more recent years, illustrating the rise in renewable power in Ireland.

Source: Green Collective; EirGrid; SEMO

The Renewable Stripes are based on available data on wind and solar power. Wind generation data makes up the vast majority of renewable energy over the last decade in Ireland and such data sourced from EirGrid dates back to 2014. Solar data in Northern Ireland has been available since 2018. For 2023, we are able to incorporate solar data in the Republic of Ireland as well.

While many are familiar with the Climate Stripes, it might be new information to some that these popular images originated from a knitting project by estuarine scientist Joan Sheldon, when she knitted a scarf visualizing global temperatures in 2015. Two years later, climate scientist Ellie Highwood, also a keen knitter, crocheted a blanket and used stripes to represent the rise in global temperatures. In 2018, Ed Hawkins, then-colleague of Ellie Highwood, was inspired by “the global-warming blanket” and turned into the blue and red stripes we know and love today. You can read all about this history reported by Canary Media here.

Like the Climate Stripes and their predecessors, our project started because we wanted to illustrate renewable energy data in a simple way for everyone. We are now processing a lot more data than just wind generation, total generation, and demand, but the goal of making grid data more accessible and engaging remains the same.

2023 has been a record year for wind, solar, and battery energy storage in Ireland. We will write more about that in the annual review, which will be out in January 2024. We hope these Renewable Stripes bring you some optimism and drive to demand a cleaner electric grid. Thank you for stopping by and we wish you a Happy Christmas (if you celebrate)!