85% of Donegal households still reliant on carbon fuels

A new report published by Liquid Gas Ireland (LGI) examining national trends in home heating energy sources displayed that 85% of Donegal households still use carbon fuels. There are two primary types of carbon-based fuels, fossil fuels and biofuels.

According to LGI’s analysis of census data, the total number of households in Donegal using oil for home heating has increased since 2016 by 3,984 to 41,393 (67%). Consequently, there are now more houses in Donegal which rely on oil for central heating than there were in 2011.

The report also revealed that Donegal is tied with Wexford as the largest users of coal. Alongside Wexford, Donegal households are the highest users of coal with 11% of homes citing it as their primary energy source for heat, while 7% of households continue to use peat. 

Added to this, In 2022, Letterkenny ranked as one of the worst-performing areas in the EPA’s Air Quality in Ireland Report. This can be linked to the fact that 78% of homes in the town rely on high-carbon home heating energy sources including oil and coal.

The role of liquid gas in providing accessible lower-carbon heating for Irish homes’ reveals how 85% of all households in Donegal currently rely on high-carbon fuels including oil, peat and coal. As the representative body for companies operating in the LPG and BioLPG industry, LGI argues these trends put key objectives of the National Residential Retrofit and Climate Action Plans at serious risk.

A large majority of the households still using high-carbon fuels are located outside major urban centres, in areas off the natural gas grid and older building stock. In many circumstances, switching to an electric heat pump system is not logistically viable or is prohibitively expensive, leaving homeowners with limited alternative options to decarbonise. 

“Rural communities should be offered the technology choices that meet their unique needs through secure, clean, and efficient lower-carbon fuels. LGI strongly argues that a ‘mixed technology’ approach that supports the use of lower carbon liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and renewable liquid gas (BioLPG / rDME) through the installation of renewable ready gas boilers, as well as heat pump technology, would help achieve this,” LGI Policy Director Philip Hannon, said.