Renewables accounted for 47% of electricity generation in Q1

Renewable power contributed nearly half of all UK electricity in the first quarter of this year, far exceeding its previous record share, according to new government figures.

The latest edition of the department for business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS)’s Energy Trends, published this morning (25 June), shows that that renewables’ total share of electricity generation increased to 47 per cent in the first three months of 2020.

This beat the previous quarterly record of 38.9 per cent, which was set in the third quarter of 2019 and was 11.1 per cent higher than renewables’ share in the equivalent three months last year.

Total renewable generation was up by 30 per cent, compared to the same quarter last year, to 40.8 Terawatt Hours (TWh).

Wind generated 30 per cent of all UK electricity, beating the previous record of 22.3 per cent set in the previous quarter.

Overall low-carbon generation reached a record high at 62.1 per cent despite a year on year fall in nuclear’s contribution due to outages.

Fossil fuel generation reached a record low at 35.4 per cent largely due to a sharp fall in use of gas plants.

The main factors underpinning the sharp increase in renewable generation were increased capacity and the very windy conditions experienced during the first quarter of this year.

Renewable electricity capacity was 47.4GW at the end of March, a 5.2 per cent increase year-on-year. This increase was chiefly fuelled by a 1.6GW increase in offshore wind generating capacity, which equated to 19 per cent.  New offshore wind capacity included the completion of the Beatrice expansion, Hornsea One coming into operation and the first stage of East Anglia One coming online.

The quarter also saw the highest load factor for all renewables since the first three months of 2014 at 39.5 per cent. Offshore wind’s load factor was 59.7 per cent, reflecting the highest average wind speeds since 2008.

Onshore wind generation was 12.8 TWh, a 29 per cent year on year increase and the first time it has exceeded 10 TWh. However this increase was outstripped by a 53 per cent rise in generation from offshore wind to 13.2 TWh. Wind generation increased by 7.5 TWh overall more than in the first quarter of last year.

Solar generation decreased by 11 per cent year-on-year due to the number of sunlight hours falling from 3.4 to 3.2 per day on average.

Generation from bioenergy was also up, by 17 per cent year-on-year to 10.4 TWh on the same quarter in 2019.

Offshore wind confirmed its grip as the largest share of renewable generation with 32.4 per cent, followed by onshore wind (31.4 per cent), bioenergy (25.5 per cent), hydro (6 per cent) and solar PV (4.7 per cent).

Responding to the new figures, RenewableUK’s head of policy and regulation Rebecca Williams said: “At the coldest time of year, wind and renewables rewrote the record books right across the board, keeping our nation powered up when we need it most. This is the clean energy transition written very large indeed.

“As the government works with us on a massive expansion of renewables as part of the UK’s green economic recovery after the pandemic, you can be sure that the latest records, extraordinary though they are, will be broken again in the years ahead, as we phase out fossil fuels to reach net zero emissions”.