Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
Growth of renewables in England is likely to stall between now and 2019, as subsidy cuts take effect and investment slows down.
Government policy support and falling technology and installation costs have caused a surge in renewables investment since 2010.
However, recent policy changes have “taken the UK out of the global fast lane of renewables”, and investment will continue to slow down up until at least 2019, Regen SW has warned.
Chart from Regen SW’s Progress report for England
In a report, the not-for-profit group said England installed 2GW of solar PV in 2015/16 – down a third on the previous year. Meanwhile solar thermal has grown steadily since 2009 and peaked at 4,363 projects in 2012/13.
Wind deployment also dropped significantly from 451MW in 2012/13 to 183MW in the last year, which the report put down to a “worsening planning environment” and uncertainty around subsidies.
The report showed that total heat capacity installed dropped by a third in 2015/16 compared with the previous year.
Source: Regen SW
Regen highlighted that the UK is still “a long way short” of its target to meet 15 per cent of its total energy demand from renewables by 2020, currently meeting only 5 per cent.
The report claimed that this shortfall is due to the “slow progress in renewable heat”, which provides 3 per cent of household heating needs in England.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.