2025 is set to be an eventful year with political shifts, geopolitical tensions, and rapidly shifting technological and economical trends. It is a time of uncertainty, but also one that presents many opportunities for those brave enough to seize them. Colm O’Neill and our Sustainable Futures team explain what this means for Ireland’s energy landscape.
Energy is more than a tool for emission reduction
Green was the key word for energy in the last decade with carbon reduction featuring on the top of the energy agenda for most Government’s worldwide. However, this has evolved in recent years as we have experienced major disruptions to our energy supplies and unstable markets.
Energy is no longer limited to a subsector of the climate crisis, but now a key part of national security, economic stability, and underpins future growth.
Energy independence
It is not just global crises that create uncertainty in the energy landscape. Exemplified by certain election results in 2024, there is an increasing global trend towards deglobalisation, trade wars, and import tariffs, which makes energy independence more important than ever.
As it stands, Ireland’s energy system remains exposed to geopolitical instability and fluctuations in the power market due to our import dependency for fossil fuels, which still accounts for over 80% of our energy consumption. As we saw during the energy crises, the effects on our economy, industry, and households can be severe.
Ambition needed in Ireland’s energy strategy
On the Governmental side, Ireland’s energy agenda currently sits under the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. Ireland’s energy policy is governed primarily by our ambition to decarbonise the energy system to limit global warming. While emission reductions are crucial, energy plays a broader role in the economy.
Ireland needs a progressive and ambitious energy strategy to continue our economic growth in order to attract further investment in technology and data centres, underpin an ambitious industrial growth ambition, and potentially exporting excess renewable energy abroad.
Obstacles to progress
Ireland is lucky that our geography supports significant renewable energy potential across onshore wind, offshore wind, solar PV, and biomethane. Developers are keen to invest and there is a rapidly growing energy demand from data centres, tech loads, and electrification.
Unfortunately, due to a range of issues from resourcing of state bodies to planning objections, we have made limited progress in recent years.
Current geopolitical instability has led to some uncertainty across global energy investors. This presents an opportunity for Ireland create a positive environment for renewable deployment in Ireland.
Renewable energy is key
Where other countries may look to other sources of energy to underpin their energy independence, Ireland has only one option: Large-scale deployment of renewable energy supported by a robust supply chain for fossil gas to support the transition.
In order to achieve this, Ireland should create a dedicated Department of Energy as would be the case in many other developed countries. It is disappointing that the programme for government has not facilitate this, however, progress can still be made if energy independence and capitalising of our renewable energy resources are given appropriate priority.
Trends in the past year
KPMG made a list of predictions for the energy landscape last January year, most of which materialised over the year:
Trends for 2025
Watch out for the following topics in the coming year:
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