Renewable power share in UK at record 25.3% in Q2 2015

The share of renewables in UK electricity generation jumped to 25.3% in the second quarter of 2015, its highest so far, thanks to capacity additions and high wind speeds, rainfall and solar levels.

For comparison, the renewables share was 16.7% in the same quarter of 2014 and 22.3% in the first quarter of 2015.

In April-June the total renewable power output rose by 51.4% year-over-year to 19.95 TWh. The table below gives details on the generation by source.

The newly released statistics show that low-carbon generation, which also includes the share of nuclear electricity, reached 46.8% in the period. Gas-fired power plants were responsible for 30.2% of the country’s power and coal accounted for 20.5%.

The UK targets 15% renewables share in gross final energy consumption by 2020. In recent months, however, the new government has taken steps to cut some and entirely abandon other subsidy mechanisms for wind and solar energy. For example, the Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidy regime will close for new onshore wind farms on April 1, 2016, a year earlier than previously planned. When announcing that move energy and climate change secretary Amber Rudd said "Onshore wind is an important part of our energy mix and we now have enough subsidised projects in the pipeline to meet our renewable energy commitments."

Solar projects will also loose support under the RO from April and the feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for small-scale renewable power systems will be cut significantly at the start of 2016.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!