According to Government’s latest Energy Trends and Quarterly Energy Prices report the UK generated a record amount of renewable energy during the first quarter of 2012. More than 11 percent of the country’s electricity generation was attributed to output from solar, wind and renewable heat sources during this period.
The report, which was published yesterday, outlined that output from all renewable sources reached 11.08TWh during the quarter, which is a 39 percent increase in comparison to the same period of 2010. The updated figures for 2011 also confirm that last year renewable energy output rose 33 percent to a record 34,410GWh.
“Today's statistics show a clear increase on the first quarter of last year across all renewables – with rises in wind, hydro, solar and bioenergy generation,” explained Energy Minister Charles Hendry.
“Alongside a 36 percent increase in renewables capacity in the last 12 months, this shows that the UK is powering forward on clean and secure energy and is clearly a very attractive place to invest.”
The report also shows that figures for microgeneration installations rose during the first half of 2012, with the feed-in tariff incentive driving the majority of the uptake, especially in the solar sector. Primary energy consumption also fell by 2.3 percent year-on-year, showing a marked increase in energy efficiency in the UK.
These statistics have largely been welcomed by the renewables industry as they provide a significant boost to the targets set by the self-dubbed “greenest Government ever.” To date the Coalition’s renewable energy policies have faced criticised for lacking ambition.
Yet despite the renewables positivity the report outlines that there is still much work to be done in the road towards the 2020 carbon targets as fossil fuels remain dominant in the UK’s energy mix.