UK generates 25.1% of power from renewables in Q1 2016

Renewables' share of electricity generation, Source: DECC, Energy Trends: renewables

The UK generated 25.1% of its electricity from renewables in the first quarter of 2016, an increase of 2.3 percentage points compared to a year ago, government statistics showed on Thursday.

The increase is mainly due to capacity additions and was helped by a decline in overall power generation. Wind speeds and rainfall were also lower than last year.

Renewables' share of electricity generation, however, fell from 26.8% in the fourth quarter of 2015.

The country had 31.2 GW of renewable electricity capacity at the end of the period, 3.3 GW more than a year earlier. Solar photovoltaics (PV) accounted for more than half of the quarter-on-quarter increase. In January-March, solar PV overtook onshore wind in terms of share of renewable capacity, with 30.7% and 30.2%, respectively, the statistics showed. PV capacity reached 9.6 GW, up 21.1% year-over-year, while onshore was almost 9.4 GW, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%.

Details on generation by source are available in the table below:

Source	Q1 2016 TWh	Change y/y
Onshore wind	6.4	-11%
Offshore wind	5.1	+10%
Bioenergy	8.3	+18%
Hydro	2	+1.8%
Solar PV	1.3	+41%
All renewables	23.2	+6.4%

Liquid biofuels consumption increased by 4.1% year-over-year, but accounted for only 2.9% of petrol and diesel consumed in road transport.

The data also included an estimate of the UK's progress for 2015 against EU goals. Renewable energy provisionally accounted for 8.3% of final energy consumption last year, up by 1.2 percentage points on 2014.

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