UK renewables generation soars as solar, storage pipelines grow rapidly
Official stats from the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), published late last week, show that in the first three months of the year output from renewables sources reached 40.8TWh – a leap of nearly 30% on the 31.5TWh renewables generated in Q1 2019.
Offshore wind was a significant driver in producing that figure. Generation from offshore wind sources grew by nearly 20% year-on-year, while the UK’s solar fleet actually produced less energy in Q1 2020 than it did in the first three months of 2019 owing to fewer sunlight hours, BEIS said.
PV Tech publisher Solar Media’s in-house market research team places the UK’s utility-scale solar pipeline slightly higher, at 9GW, with head of market research Finlay Colville indicating there to have been a particular rush of projects entering the planning stage in recent months. More than 600MW of new planning applications for solar farms were submitted in the UK last month alone.
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