Energy Ireland
Renewable Energy Summit 2026

Energy Ireland Renewable Energy Summit 2026Delivering a renewable energy system: clean, secure and affordable

Energy Ireland’s Renewable Energy Summit, now in its 22nd year, is the major event bringing together the renewable energy sector as a whole. Attracting over 200 key stakeholders, attendees will hear from an impressive line-up of expert speakers looking towards Ireland’s renewable energy future.

The 2026 summit comes at a pivotal time for renewable energy development in Ireland. There has been significant progress in delivering on Ireland’s renewable energy ambitions. The fifth RESS has delivered the next phase of renewable energy support to achieve Ireland’s target of at least 80% renewable electricity by 2030. The second ORESS auction, Tonn Nua ORESS offshore wind auction was announced in May 2025 and targets a 900MW project off the south coast. The auction supports Ireland’s Climate Action Plan target of 5GW of offshore wind by 2030.

In order to support the increasing amount of intermittent renewable electricity on the grid, there is now over 1GW of battery storage on the grid and increased interconnection with the 500MW Greenlink HVDC interconnector coming on stream in 2025 and the 700MW Celtic interconnector to France scheduled to some on stream in 2026.

The Renewable Heat Obligation Bill was announced in July 2025 and includes a specific measure to provide support to indigenously produced biomethane, encouraging obligated parties to procure supplies from domestic producers. This led to several large scale biomethane projects being announced later in the year. The solar energy sector continues to grow at a pace with 2GW of installed capacity in late 2025. There are also several projects under development in emerging technologies including green hydrogen and marine renewables.

This Government’s renewable energy ambitions are set against a backdrop of an increasing focus on energy security and a growing climate crisis that has led the IEA to call for a trebling of renewable energy development globally. Whilst Ireland has made good progress in the use of renewable sources in the electricity sector, both the heat and transport sectors have been particularly challenging. The 2026 summit will look across all the sectors at plans to develop existing technologies and will also look at the potential for deploying new technologies such as green hydrogen.