Renewable generation hits new highs confirming ‘revolution in power generation’

Renewable generation hit a new record in 2019, generating 37.1% of the UK's electricity throughout the year.

This was up from 33.1% in 2018, and reflected a 6.5% increase in renewable generation capacity, which rose to 47.2GW according to new figures released by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) today.

Over the course of 2019, solar generation increased by 1.4% helping to bolster renewable generation. Overall renewables jumped by 10% to hit a record 121TWh on a year earlier. Since 2004, today’s statistics showed, there has been a tenfold increase in renewable generation in the UK.

RenewableUK’s deputy chief executive Melanie Onn said: “At a time when so many things seem uncertain, the consistent rise of renewables, keeping the UK powered up, bringing billions in investment in new energy infrastructure and creating highly skilled jobs all over the country, is a terrific success story we can all be proud of.

“Today’s figures confirm just how far we’ve come in the revolution in power generation; in 2010 less than 7% of our electricity came from renewables – now it’s 37%.”

However she urged the UK to do more, particularly in sectors such as heating and transport, and called for a “massive expansion” in battery storage to get us to net zero emissions.

Along with the figures for 2019, BEIS today released deployment figures for PV for June 2020. These found that there is currently 13,447MW of installed solar capacity across 1,037,150 installations in the UK.

During June, there were 1,074 installations, roughly the same as in May 2020 but a sharp drop from the first three months of the year with the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown still being keenly felt.

Of the capacity currently installed in the UK, 45% comes from 466 large scale installation – those greater than 4MW – or 6,020MW. Overall sub-4kW installations account for 92.8% of the total, but just 20.2% of installed capacity, or 2,720MW.

In June, 80% of installations were of sub-4kW PV, increasing the capacity by 5MW. The Microgeneration Certification Scheme recently found that domestic solar PV installations more than doubled in June, jumping 185% on average compared to May as numbers surged as lockdown began to lift.