Third Year of Decline
Northern Ireland’s renewable electricity share fell for a third consecutive year in the 12 months to September 2025, dropping to 44.2% of generation, down 0.3% on the previous year, according to figures reported by BBC News NI on December 5, 2025. The region’s renewables peaked at 51% in 2022 and have drifted lower every year since, an outcome the industry group RenewableNI described as a slide backwards.
Wind did slightly more of the work than the year before, about 82.2% of renewable output against 81.9% in 2024, with the remainder split among biogas at 6.5%, biomass at 5%, solar at 4%, landfill gas at 1.4% and other sources at 0.9%.
A Scheme Stuck in the Assembly
The RenewableNI director, Mark Richardson, pinned the decline on delays to policy and infrastructure reform. The final design of the Renewable Energy Price Guarantee, the support scheme known as REPG, appeared in September 2025, but its terms and conditions still had not reached the Assembly and no draft bill had been laid. The scheme’s first auction, meant to award generation contracts, was expected in early 2027, and Richardson warned the timetable could slip without urgent action.
“Quarterly figures will always shift slightly with changes in weather, but overall, the trend should be rising as we approach the Climate Act obligation of 80% renewable electricity by 2030,” he said. “Instead, because we have no market support scheme in place, very few new projects are progressing, and generation is sliding backwards.”
A 2030 Target at Risk
Northern Ireland’s Climate Act obliges it to draw 80% of its electricity from renewables by 2030, a goal that now sits far above actual output. Richardson said the pipeline exists: “The renewable electricity sector is ready with enough projects in pre- and planning to meet future demand,” he said, while cautioning that market security and planning timelines must be fixed to stop the region stagnating as the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain push ahead.
With 500 days remaining in the assembly mandate at the time of his remarks, he argued the clock was ticking: “The legislative timetable is tight, but all parties signed up to the target of 80% by 2030.” The same cross-party support, he said, could push the support scheme through at pace and unlock investment alongside a secure energy supply.
The REPG, once live, is meant to cut bills by backing additional locally generated renewable energy. Until its terms reach the Assembly floor, that mechanism remains on paper while the share of renewables in the grid keeps edging the wrong way.
