Trevor Johnston

Exciting times on the grid on a Friday seem determined to keep me working over the weekend 😆

Yeah, we've been doing this for a while now... 🎯 💁‍♂️

A treemap of the electricity mix on the island of Ireland with the following fuel types: battery, pumped storage, biomass, hydro, solar, wind, oil, gas, and waste-to-energy. Larger sources are annotated with the GWh and percentage of total generation that source comprised. Footnote reads: All-island figures. Excludes rooftop solar. Source: EirGrid, SEMO

A county-level heatmap of Irish renewable generation. Counties are divided into four tiers, according to how much renewable energy each produced. Footnote reads: Renewables comprise wind, hydro, solar, and biomass. Excludes wind and solar farms not registered with SEMO. Excludes rooftop solar. Source: SEMO

Wind set new a new record and was the largest source of electricity generation in February, with Cork and Kerry back as top wind producers following January's unprecedented upset by Offaly.

This and much more in the latest "Irish Grid Monthly", available now to all our newsletter subscribers!

A county-level heatmap of wind generation around the time of the record. Counties are divided into three tiers, according to how much wind energy each was producing at the time. Footnote reads: Excludes wind and solar farms not registered with SEMO. Source: SEMO

Presenting a county-level look at last Saturday’s wind record 🔎

Cork and Kerry are typically the top two wind-producing counties, and Offaly's been catching up for a while now. The surprise? Tyrone, which has never been a "top 5" county for wind over the course of a calendar month.

A stacked area chart of the electricity generation mix on the island of Ireland with the following fuel types: battery, pumped storage, biomass, waste-to-energy, hydro, solar, wind, oil, and gas. There is also a black line showing electricity demand. Footnote reads: All-island figures. Excludes rooftop solar. Source: EirGrid, SEMO

A stacked area chart of the renewable electricity generation mix on the island of Ireland. There are eight fuel types: pumped storage, biomass, waste-to-energy, hydro, solar, wind, oil, and gas. The y axis indicates the percentage of demand being met by each source. Footnote reads: All-island figures. Excludes rooftop solar. Source: EirGrid, SEMO

🚨 Yesterday afternoon, wind power reached a new high on the island of Ireland: 4686MW, equal to 73.5% of electricity demand and 66.8% of total generation at the time.

The previous record which stood for just over two years has now been broken twice already this winter 🥇

A county-level heatmap of Irish renewable generation. Counties are divided into three tiers, according to how much wind energy each produced. Renewables comprise wind, hydro, solar, and biomass. Excludes wind and solar farms not registered with SEMO. Excludes rooftop solar. Source: SEMO

Offaly was the #1 renewable-producing county in January, beating both Cork and Kerry for the very first time.

It produced enough power from renewable sources to meet almost 5% of the island's entire electricity demand for the month.

Literally one month after we decided to move away from separate wind and solar county analysis because the rankings so rarely change...the wind rankings changed 😆

(I still prefer the new format, though -- go read!)

30+ years now of footering about with technical stuff for pleasure and for profit, and an Apple user every day of the year...but I've yet to get iMessage setup just the way I'd like 🤬

I unfortunately only really got into Jeopardy *far* too late into my time in the US -- it was a long-time hold-out from streaming and so, when I left the US and my little TV aerial behind, I figured we were done. But next-day episodes on Peacock was one of of the best things happen in TV in 2025.

Why revamp the county rankings?

Treating wind and solar separately, things just don't vary that much month-to-month -- new plants being few and far between. However, renewables as a *whole* varies a lot throughout the year, e.g. solar in summer and hydro in winter.

Should be much more interesting!

Record year for wind and solar electricity in Great Britain in 2025 Wind, solar and other renewables hit a new high last year but the government is still some way off its clean power target.

Happened to catch this on the BBC1 news, too: renewables in GB in 2025.

Although the TV folk were confusing TW/TWh and (weirdly) the UK with the island of Great Britain, I've a hard time imagining RTÉ doing the same for the island of Ireland's grid *on January 2*!

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Happy with this one, *particularly* considering we were (highly unusual for us, who care much more about Christmas than the New Year -- often in bed before midnight) both out until about 3am the night before 😵‍💫

Taking it easy today!

Badge unlocked (literally): solved Wordle in 1 guess 🏅 💥

I just completed "Movie Theater" - Day 9 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/9

I just completed "Playground" - Day 8 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/8

Emerging from Christmas food and TV hibernation just long enough to assemble this wee post.

We noticed the Christmas Day afternoon peak years ago but never the Easter Sunday (?); the data doesn't lie! 🤷‍♂️

Sad but unsurprised to see the end of the Christmas Eve broadcast from Grafton Street, as their new favourite presenter obviously wouldn't be caught dead in the city centre (maybe it's okay: the number of kids belting out "Jingle Bells" had almost dropped to zero in recent years anyway).

#SpeirGorm

For the past few days, we've been trialling our new pipeline: perfect alignment of the most important EirGrid/SEMO feeds for *little* more accuracy, and more work pushed out to the database for a *lot* less operational load.

All going well, nobody will notice! 🤞

I just completed "Laboratories" - Day 7 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/7

I just completed "Trash Compactor" - Day 6 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/6

I just completed "Cafeteria" - Day 5 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/5

I just completed "Printing Department" - Day 4 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/4

I just completed "Lobby" - Day 3 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/3

I just completed "Gift Shop" - Day 2 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/2

I just completed "Secret Entrance" - Day 1 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/1

What would have made this a "triple-mega jackpot Christmas-y day"? Belatedly starting #adventofcode; but currently too much "real" work to be done.

Yesterday likely to prove the "most Christmas-y" day:
- start "Hogfather", over a fine imperial stout 📖 🍺
- dinner at the Christmas market 🌮
- Nils Landgren "Christmas with my friends" concert 🎺

(also had the plumber in, and DIY on the bed...that chaos was actually the *most* Christmas-y thing)

Got it!

Spotted this in paperback at @gutterbookshop.bsky.social only a few days after release and obviously had to grab it -- but very much still hoping to pick up a complete trilogy with the @emberwickart.bsky.social covers at some point (should look amazing beside my old Discworlds) 🤓

Previous TV purchase was in 2009, so the TV refresh rate is now headed for 15+ years 🤞

bsky.app/profile/beer...

Badge unlocked: actually bought something in a "Black Friday" "sale" 😬

Current TV refresh rate: once roughly each 10-15 years ♻️