The flurry of clean energy and emissions records that have toppled in recent months has continued, with confirmation renewable energy generated more electricity than any other power source in the United Kingdom in the first three months of the year.
The milestone was highlighted in the latest quarterly energy market report from analyst firm EnAppSys, which detailed how renewable energy generated 35.4 TerraWatthours (TWh) of power during the quarter, accounting for 44.6 per cent of total generation.
The British environmental news website BusinessGreen reports high winds throughout much of the second half of the winter contributed to a significant year-on-year increase in renewable energy generation.
Output rose around 30 per cent from the 27.2TWh generated in the first three months of 2019.
Overall, power output from wind farms exceeded 10GW for 63 per cent of the quarter and 5.0GW for 85 per cent of the three-month period.
BusinessGreen reports a sharp drop off in demand during March, as the UK’s coronavirus lockdown took effect, meant renewables’ share of the grid mix was higher than expected.
Consequently, renewables not only exceeded levels of gas or coal-fired generation for a whole quarter for the first time, they also exceeded levels of total fossil fuel generation by 36 per cent.
Paul Verrill, director of EnAppSys, said the results may have been amplified by exceptional circumstances, but they still represented “a significant milestone for Britain’s power industry”.
“Whilst the ‘stay at home’ measures reduced demand in the last weeks of March, which increased the contribution of renewable energy, wind farms generated significantly more power than gas-fired plants, which historically have been the dominant fuel type for electricity generation in Great Britain for some years now,” he explained.
He also predicted that plans to further expand the UK’s renewable energy capacity meant the record would be beaten again, even under more typical weather conditions.
“With weather likely to return to more typical patterns in future quarters, the 45 per cent of electricity generation from renewable sources in the quarter is likely to be a temporary high,” he told BusinessGreen.
“However, given recent trends which show that renewable energy are becoming an increasingly dominant player in Britain’s power mix, the continued build of offshore wind farms and the resurgence in onshore wind should see these levels being achieved more often in the longer term.”
Overall, 44.6 per cent of power generation for the quarter came from renewable projects, 29.1 per cent came from gas-fired plants, 15.3 per cent from nuclear plants, 7.3 per cent from power imports, and 3.7 per cent from coal plants.
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