Linda Hardesty
UK Energy Secretary Edward Davey says renewable energy is powering forward in the UK.
The 2012 update to the Renewable Energy Roadmap shows the UK is on track to meet its first interim target on the way to the European target to source 15 percent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Progress made on the rollout of renewable energy across the UK from July 2011 to July 2012, includes:
- A 40 percent increase over the same period in renewable electricity capacity. Now over 10 percent of all electricity generated is coming from renewables;
- A 27 percent increase in overall renewable electricity generated, reaching 37.9 TWh from a total of 14.4 GW installed capacity;
- Both offshore and onshore wind showed a marked increase in installed capacity, up 60 percent to 2.5 GW and up 24 percent to 5.3 GW respectively over the period;
- The UK’s first coal-fired to biomass-fired electricity generation conversion opened during 2012 at Tilbury, and a second is soon to follow at Ironbridge;
- Solar photovoltaics (PV) recorded the highest growth with a five and a half times increase in capacity to 1.4 GW by the end of June 2012 compared to June 2011. The Roadmap also shows that in the last year the cost of solar PV has fallen by 50 percent, with the technology now identified as a key technology in the Roadmap update.
The installed price of solar PV systems in the United States also has fallen, due largely to a steep decline in the cost of solar modules.
