Renewables in UK energy mix hit all-time high

Figures just out show that the share of renewables in the UK’s electricity generation hit a record high of 31.7% in the second quarter of 2018.  At the same time, coal dropped to an all-time low of only 1.6%.

The figures, from the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), show that gas accounted for 4% and nuclear’s contribution was 21.7% (down because of outages at several large reactors).

Renewable capacity was 42.2 GW at the end of the second quarter, a 10% rise on the same period a year earlier, with over half of the annual increase coming from offshore wind.

Low carbon electricity’s share of electricity generation remained over 50% in the second quarter at 53.4%, compared to 53.7% in the second quarter of 2017.

Onshore wind generation fell by 12% due to lower wind speeds, although this was more than offset by an increase in offshore wind, due to a 2.2 GW increase in capacity. Generation from hydro fell by 4.5% on a year earlier, because of lower rainfall. Generation from bioenergy was up by 8.9%, despite a fall in generation from landfill gas.

Excitingly, solar PV increased to a new record of 4.6 TWh, 0.9% higher than the second quarter of 2017, which held the previous record.