During the third quarter of 2024, renewable energy sources accounted for 50.5% of electricity generation in Britain.
Electricity statistics from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) show that fossil fuel production in the third quarter was 29% lower than in the third quarter of 2023, accounting for 17.9 TWh.
This is the fourth consecutive quarter that renewables have made up more than half of UK generation.
Although solar hours this year were the same as in the third quarter of last year, a 10% increase in solar PV capacity led to a 9.2% increase in solar energy generation.
Renewable electricity generation reached 32.2 TWh in the third quarter of 2024, up 6.5% on 2023. DESNZ also states that 2.7 GW of renewable capacity was added in the past year: 1.6 MW of solar PV , 0.4 GW wind at sea and 0.6 GW wind on land. Three-quarters of this, the ministry says, took place in the most recent quarter (which runs from July to September, which coincided with the new government taking office).
Britain has achieved two records for maximum wind generation in a week, according to data from the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
By 6:30 PM on December 15, 22,243 MW of wind power was in operation to set a maximum wind record for Great Britain, beating the previous record of 21,998 MW set on January 10, 2023. Then at 3:30 am on December 18, 22,523 MW of wind power was in use, setting a new record.
There was a 4.5% decline in offshore wind energy generation, which DESNZ attributes to lower wind speeds. It is also stated that the increase in onshore wind energy generation could be due to a higher level of new capacity.
UK solar capacity is increasing
Figures from DESNZ recently showed that Britain will have a total of 17.2 GW of solar generation capacity at the end of October 2024, an increase of 1 GW or 6.3% since October 2023.
In October 2024, 76 MW of capacity was added across 20,102 new solar installations. Of this, 73% were residential, which amounts to 58 MW of the added installed capacity. This broadly reflects a trend evident in the UK solar sector, where the majority of solar installations are domestic. However, domestic installations only make up around 30% of total UK capacity, with around 5.2GW of solar energy coming from residential roofs.
This article originally appeared on our sister site, Current±.
