RTÉ Prime Time: Why does Ireland have some of the highest electricity bills in Europe?

The May 12th edition of RTÉ Prime Time highlighted the urgent and frustrating failures in Ireland’s energy system: the continued waste of clean renewable energy while families across the country struggle with energy poverty.

The report by Oonagh Smyth, followed by Miriam O’Callaghan’s interview with Minister Darragh O’Brien TD, brought national attention to the scale of renewable energy dispatch down in Ireland and the opportunity that is being lost every single day.

📺 Watch the programme here:
Prime Time – RTE Player

At the same time, EnergyCloud Ireland has published its latest Monthly Wasted Clean Energy Report for March 2026. According to the report, 16% of renewable wind energy generated in March 2026 was dispatched down. This equated to approximately €62 million worth of clean energy wasted in a single month, or enough energy to heat 56 million hot water tanks.

Since the current Government took office, Ireland has been wasting an average of more than €1.5 million worth of renewable energy every day.
This is not simply an energy systems issue. It is also a social issue.
At a time when many households continue to face impossible “eat or heat” decisions, Ireland is still curtailing vast quantities of clean renewable electricity that could instead be redirected to support families experiencing energy poverty.

EnergyCloud’s work across Ireland, including free hot water programmes and new pilots involving heat pump controllers and smart storage heating, demonstrates that practical solutions already exist.