Offshore wind farms are the greatest contributor to renewable electricity generation in the United Kingdom. In 2023, offshore wind power production reached almost 50 terawatt hours. This followed the ever-increasing fleet of offshore wind parks. Onshore wind power production came to 32.6 terawatt hours in 2023. Offshore and onshore wind combined accounted for some 60 percent of the UK's renewable electricity generation that year.

The UK's energy use from renewable and waste sources, by source (for example, hydroelectric power, wind, wave, solar, and so on) and industry (SIC 2007 section - 21 categories), 1990 to 2023.

Context

This will act as the base data for the investigation into the possible solutions for the UK energy requirements

Content

A cleaned version of the UK statistics on renewable energy generation.

Acknowledgements

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/regional-renewable-statistics7

All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0,

Renewable energy consumption in the United Kingdom amounted to 1.43 exajoules in 2023, remaining constant when compared to the previous year. Nevertheless, between 1998 and 2022, renewables consumption in the UK increased by 1.3 exajoules, peaking at 1.43 exajoules in 2022.

Historical chart and dataset showing U.K. renewable energy by year from 1990 to 2021.

Levels of support for renewable energy for electricity, heat and fuel in the United Kingdom have remained relatively unchanged since 2012. In 2012, 79 percent of respondents reported being supportive of the use of renewable energy, while five percent were opposed. This figure rose to 84 percent as of March 2023. The share of respondents who support renewables, however, has presented a growing trend.

This release includes annual estimates of low carbon and renewable energy economy activity in the UK and constituent countries: turnover, employment, exports, imports, acquisitions, disposals and number of businesses.

The United Kingdom Renewable Energy Market report segments the industry into Source (Wind, Solar, Hydro, Bioenergy, Other Sources (Geothermal, Tidal)). Get five years of historical data alongside five-year market forecasts.

Greater awareness about the effects of climate change has driven an aggressive decarbonising strategy spearheaded by renewables. Government targets and incentives encourage major investment in renewable assets among UK energy giants. Technology developments have boosted potential generating capacity, particularly in offshore wind, which has grown the fastest of all renewable energy sources. According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the share of electricity generated by major power producers from renewables surged from 34.5% in 2019-20 to 42.4% in 2023-24. Renewable generators' revenue is slated to climb at a compound annual rate of 8.7% over the five years through 2024-25 to reach £14.5 billion. Growth has been underpinned by the UK’s rapid expansion of renewable generating capacity. Offshore wind has recorded the most significant expansion in generation volumes as investors look to take advantage of technological advancements to tap into the UK's abundant natural resources. Soaring wholesale prices have added to revenue growth since H2 2021-22; however, operators of renewable generation assets that operate under a Contract for Difference (CfD) have been required to pay back the difference between wholesale prices and CfD strike prices, limiting the impact of a surge in wholesale prices on operating profit. Inflation-linked increases to fixed price mechanisms have also boosted growth. Revenue is forecast to jump by 11.4% in 2024-25. Revenue is forecast to swell at a compound annual rate of 11.1% over the five years through 2029-30 to reach £24.6 billion. The UK already has a strong pipeline of renewable assets set for delivery in the coming years, with ongoing government support likely to fuel further investment. In the short term, increased capacity is set against a backdrop of falling strike prices, though the extent of capacity expansion should support further growth. Hikes in strike prices secured in the most recent CfD allocation round will also boost growth in the longer term. Rising battery storage capacity should help support growth in renewables' share of the UK energy mix by reducing barriers associated with intermittent supplies of renewable power.

Electricity generation from renewable sources in the United Kingdom has increased considerably in the period of consideration, peaking at some 135 terawatt hours in 2022. In 2021, renewable electricity generation registered a small decline. In that year, renewable electricity production amounted to around 122 terawatt hours.

Forecast: Share of Renewable Electricity Generation in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Recent developments include: February 2023: the Crown State in the United Kingdom signed agreements to lease six offshore wind energy projects. These projects are likely to start generating electricity by the end of the decade, and these projects have the potential to generate 8 GW of renewable energy sufficient to power more than seven million households., March 2022: Shell announced a plan to invest around USD 33 billion n the United Kingdom energy system in the next ten years. Around 75 % of total investment was expected in renewable energy projects, including offshore wind, hydrogen, and electric mobility., January 2022: SSE announced details of its first solar project that delivered 30 MW of clean energy as part of its ambitious USD 16 billion investment program to power change toward net zero. The 30-MW solar farm at Littleton Pastures is located near Evesham, Worcestershire, England. Once completed in late 2023, the 77-acre site can power about 9,400 homes.. Key drivers for this market are: 4., Supportive Government Policies in the Country4.; Rising Efforts to Decrease the Dependency on Fossil Fuels to Reduce Carbon Emissions. Potential restraints include: 4., Changes in Government Policies Related to Increasing VAT on Various Clean Energy Technologies. Notable trends are: Wind Energy is Expected to Dominate the Market.

Forecast: Total Renewable Energy Share in the Total Final Energy Consumption in the UK 2023 - 2027 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Forecast: Share of Renewable Energy and Nuclear Energy Use in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Demand of renewables and waste as primary energy are forecasted to increase over the years, peaking at 29 million metric tons of oil equivalent as of 2025. By 2040, figures are expected to decrease and reach 26 million metric tons of oil equivalent. However, fossil fuels, such as natural gas and oil are forecasted to be the major primary energy sources in the United Kingdom.

This graph illustrates the share of electricity generation in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1996 to 2017, by source. It shows that the share of electricity generated from coal has been decreasing significantly over this period, dropping from a share of 42.2 percent in 1996 to just seven percent by 2017. This coincides with the increasing share of renewable electricity generation, which combined with nuclear electricity generation had a share of more than 50 percent for the first time ever in 2017.

In 2017, just under 100 terawatt hours of electricity was generated through renewable sources, with onshore wind generating 28.7 terawatt hours.

Analysis of ‘Renewable Energy Generated in the UK’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/louissg/renewable-energy-statistics on 14 February 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Context

This will act as the base data for the investigation into the possible solutions for the UK energy requirements

Content

A cleaned version of the UK statistics on renewable energy generation.

Acknowledgements

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/regional-renewable-statistics7

All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0,

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---