Pure Data Centres Group moved 9 GWh of certified German biomethane onto the Irish gas network over seven days. The supply is RED II/III‑compliant, mass‑balanced via the interconnectors and tracked through Gas Networks Ireland’s Renewable Gas Registry, with certificates approved by GNI. It fully ‘decarbonises’ the gas burned at Pure DC’s off‑grid west Dublin campus (by accounting standards), three energy centres rated up to 30 MW each behind a 200 MW thermal connection, with on‑site batteries and biofuel‑ready plant. Pure DC says it is still evaluating Irish biomethane purchase agreements alongside imports. Minister Peter Burke has called data‑centre expansion a “strategic opportunity,” and the sector, on about 22% of electricity in 2024 and heading toward a third by 2030, sits against a National Biomethane Strategy target of up to 5.7 TWh of domestic supply a year by 2030.

In practice, certified imports can decarbonise data‑centre gas today while domestic biomethane scales, and origin and certification, not volume alone, will set the credibility test. The higher‑integrity standard is Irish biomethane itself, molecules produced and injected here rather than imported certificates, which is what the 5.7 TWh domestic target is meant to deliver.

Flogas is supplying certified biomethane into a new pilot facilitated by Gas Networks Ireland, in which the Malting Company of Ireland malts barley with renewable gas at its Cork plant for use by Galway’s Ahascragh Distillery, Ireland’s first eco‑distillery, in whiskey production. The pilot targets the high‑heat malting stage, one of the harder parts of the drinks supply chain to electrify, and cuts the Scope 3 emissions in the malt the distillery buys. The Malting Company, malting since 1858, says it runs the same process and equipment with the gas switched.

In practice, it is a working template for using certified biomethane to decarbonise high‑temperature industrial heat, the demand‑side pull the 5.7 TWh target needs alongside new supply.

Battery‑electric cars were the top‑selling engine type in May, up 115% year on year, in a new‑car market up 4.7% overall, with electrified models close to two‑thirds of sales (SIMI). The ICE2EV scrappage pilot opens on 1 July, run by SEAI on a first‑come, first‑served basis and capped at €10m, offering up to €8,500 toward a new EV, a €5,000 scrappage payment on top of the existing €3,500 grant, for scrapping a pre‑2013 petrol or diesel car, with a rural weighting.

One counterpoint worth holding. The capped, first‑come pilot refreshes the offer for older‑car owners but adds only a small increment, with existing market momentum carrying the 2026 numbers.

Petrol and diesel made up 98.3% of new cars sold in Ireland in 2015. In 2025 they were 42.6%, and 34.3% in the year to date. Diesel alone has fallen from 71% to 17% across the decade. The ground they gave up has gone to electrified models. Battery‑electric cars rose from 0.4% of the market in 2015 to 18.9% in 2025 and 23.0% so far in 2026, the year they became the top‑selling engine type, while hybrids and plug‑ins together are now the largest block at about 43%.

In practice, the new‑car fleet entering Irish roads is already majority‑electrified, which steadily moves transport demand onto the electricity system and the charging network rather than the forecourt.

Five suppliers began publishing half‑hourly dynamic electricity prices this month, and the first cards show wholesale running from 5 €/MWh on Sunday morning to 205 €/MWh that evening, a 40‑fold swing a day. Bord Gáis Energy passes the wholesale price through almost cleanly, from a 17.3c floor to a 39.1c peak. The other four (Electric Ireland, Energia, PrepayPower and Yuno) wrap the dynamic rate around a time‑of‑use base, reaching lower overnight, 9.2c at Electric Ireland, but holding a 20c–27c day floor through the midday solar trough. PrepayPower and Yuno priced identically to the cent.

An EV charged in the cheapest six‑hour window cost €5.36–7.12 for 40 kWh, against €13.82–17.40 across the evening peak, though a fixed EV night tariff such as Pinergy at 5.45c, €2.18, still wins the plain overnight charge for now.

SSE submitted further information to An Coimisiún Pleanála for the 800 MW Arklow Bank 2 project off Wicklow and north Wexford, trimming the turbine count from 56 to 53 and updating its Environmental Impact Assessment Report and Natura Impact Statement, in response to the commission’s April 2025 request. The revised surveys conclude effects on coastal erosion and seabird populations are not significant in EIA terms. Public observations run from 3 June to 29 July 2026. The project already holds consent for an operations and maintenance base at Arklow Harbour and for onshore cabling and a substation connection.

Arklow Bank 2 moves a step closer to a construction decision and opens an observation window through late July as one of the most advanced of Ireland’s offshore projects.

A planning milestone for the 360 MW Silvermines pumped‑storage scheme in Co. Tipperary (Siga Hydro with Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners), which would reuse a flooded former open‑cast mine as its lower reservoir and store up to 2,175 MWh a day, enough to supply about 185,000 homes. It is a European Project of Common Interest, has drawn €4.3m in Connecting Europe Facility support, and would more than double the State’s pumped‑storage capacity alongside ESB’s Turlough Hill. Construction is targeted from 2026 toward operation around 2031.

Long‑duration storage absorbs surplus wind at night and returns it at peak, the balancing role the curtailment figures show the system increasingly needs beside batteries.

Kilshane Energy has lodged a Strategic Infrastructure Development application with An Coimisiún Pleanála for a 680 MW flexible gas peaking plant at Kilshane in Dublin 11, two gas turbine units of up to 340 MW each designed to run at times of high demand and low renewable output. It would sit alongside the developer’s consented €250m, 293 MW open‑cycle phase one, which is in construction and due in 2028, with phase two targeted for operation in late 2029. The planning report ties the proposal to the Climate Action Plan 2025 target of at least 2 GW of flexible gas by 2030.

Flexible peaking gas is the firm backup that lets the grid take on more wind and solar, complementing storage and the network build rather than competing with them.

EirGrid issued revised compensation terms to landowners on the 138 km North‑South Interconnector route from Co. Meath to Co. Tyrone, a package totalling about €40m. Owners can take a settlement of €50,000 per pylon plus €160 a metre for overhead lines, or an upfront payment of €43,000 per pylon plus €140 a metre, each subject to an €8,000 minimum, with goodwill payments for early sign‑up. The 400 kV link will raise transfer capacity between the two systems and support renewable integration, with EirGrid’s latest adequacy assessment setting a completion timeline toward 2031.

The revised terms and the move to statutory wayleaves set out the route to construction for a line that strengthens cross‑border supply.

Minister for Climate Darragh O’Brien said on 3 June that Ireland will not meet its legally binding target of halving emissions by 2030, and accepted the State could face EU compliance costs. This follows the EPA projection covered last week, which puts the best‑case reduction at about 25% against the 51% national target measured from a 2018 baseline. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has estimated potential costs of between €8bn and €26bn. O’Brien said he will engage with the European Commission on those costs and pointed to offshore wind and electrification driving significant reductions from the early 2030s.

In practice, the statement sets the policy frame for the decade, with the largest cuts now expected once offshore capacity reaches the grid after 2030.

The UK’s net‑zero economy generated about £105bn in gross value added in 2025 and supported some 1.1 million full‑time‑equivalent jobs, per the latest CBI Economics and ECIU analysis. Direct activity accounted for £36.7bn and 308,000 jobs, with the rest in supply chains and the wider economy, and each role produced roughly £119,300 in value, about 1.5 times the national average.

The figures give Irish policymakers and financiers a near‑neighbour benchmark for the scale a clean‑energy industrial base can reach.

Advisory support for Ireland’s positions in UN climate negotiations and in carbon‑market mechanisms.

Economic advice on the next phases of the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme. RESS auctions are the main onshore route to market for renewables, so the design choices here set developer economics for the coming rounds.

Whether synthetic aviation fuel, e‑kerosene, can be made commercially here. ReFuelEU sets a rising synthetic share, 1.2% from 2030 and 5% by 2035, and eSAF is the green‑hydrogen and captured‑CO₂ route that ties aviation to Ireland’s hydrogen plans.

How aviation fuel moves through and is stored in the State.