Public urged to use less electricity and gas between 5 and 7pm to save energy

Environment minister Eamon Ryan has urged people to use less electricity and gas at the peak time of 5 to 7 pm in an effort to curb energy use. 

A major new campaign is to be launched by the Government to promote energy use reduction in the coming days. 

Addressing a meeting of the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Thursday, the minister said that applying this action will have a positive knock-on effect in the form of sending less revenue to the Russian government.

"Its not just the quantity of energy used, it’s the timing," Minister Ryan said.

"It's a step in the efficiencies direction where we need to go anyway," he said, noting that countries cannot be "held to ransom" on energy supplies and costs as a result of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

His comments were reported on RTÉ. 

He added that if they can reduce the amount of energy consumed at peak times, then they would stop the need to turn on gas plants to deal with this surge. 

The Environment Minister previously spoke about the importance of energy efficiency to cope with rising fuel costs.