Wind capacity outstrips gas for the first time

Britain’s installed wind capacity has surpassed that of gas for the first time in history, a new report has revealed.

Analysis from Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights has confirmed that wind capacity reached 27.9GW in June compared to the 27.7GW installed gas generation capacity.

The findings mean Britain is only the fifth country in the world to have built more wind farms than any other form of power generation.

Drax’s report highlights how wind capacity has tripled over the last decade, with this split almost equally between onshore (14.1GW) and offshore (13.8GW). Half of this capacity is located in England, 38% in Scotland and 12% in Wales.

“Taken all together, around £60 billion has been invested over the past 20 years to build these farms (close to £1,000 for every person in the country), mostly by pension funds and other large institutional investors,” the report said.

It found that while the rate of building new projects has gone through peaks and troughs over the years, it has consistently averaged around 2GW annually since 2009.

Elsewhere the report found that output from gas-fired power stations fell by almost a quarter (23%) in Q2 2023 compared to the same quarter last year. Output from coal meanwhile plummeted by 75% to its lowest levels on record.

It added that carbon emissions from electricity production fell to less than 10 million tonnes of CO2 in Q2 2023 for only the second time on record. The only other time this happened was as a result of lockdowns during the pandemic.

Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, lead author of the Drax Electric Insights report series, said: “Wind power is blowing away gas and coal from Britain’s energy mix and in just a decade, we’ve gone from relying completely on the polluting fuels of the past to embracing the clean energy technologies of the future.

“The shift to wind as the largest power source by capacity is a clear sign of the progress we’ve made, showing countries around the world that they can decarbonise their power grids when government and industry works together.”

Penny Small, Drax’s group generation director, said: “Cutting the UK’s reliance on imported foreign gas and coal is critical to strengthening the country’s national energy security and tackling climate change.

“At Drax, we believe the UK’s next big focus should be on unlocking investment in technologies which permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere. That’s why we are progressing plans to deploy Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) technology at scale in the UK and the US.”

Responding to the announcement, Helen Emmerson, an energy partner at the law firm Gowling WLG, said “there is still much more to do in terms of triggering a more significant difference in capacity numbers”.

She added: “What will help is a recent relaxation of planning rules for onshore windfarm development which places the onus on local authorities to curate community-based applications for sites to be developed – thereby placing the power to advance this more in the hands of consumers than ever before. Indeed, the community-based request format is a key way to ensure demand is met.

“Of course, it will be interesting to see how much of a centralised approach to this is put in place in light of the urgency local authorities need to place on processing any requests.”

“The use of local development orders and community right to build orders to facilitate these requests is significant though, as these significantly speed up the process of planning permission being granted – and bring windfarms in line with other planning requests for shops and playgrounds, for example – thereby offsetting the risk of any fragmentation on a localised basis.

“While today’s news is a landmark for windpower, there is clearly much more to do in terms of utilising this opportunity for their greater development in the right way – watch this space.”