Is The Uk Switching To Renewable Energy?
The UK currently gets about 27% of its electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and biomass. This is up from around 8% in 2010. The UK aims to increase renewable energy further, with a goal of reaching 40% by 2030, as part of its commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The UK still relies heavily on fossil fuels like natural gas for electricity generation. However, the use of coal has declined dramatically, from about 40% of electricity in 2012 to under 2% today. Nuclear power provides around 16% of electricity.
Major investments and policy support have driven growth in renewables over the past decade. Offshore wind has expanded rapidly, with the UK now the world’s largest offshore wind market. More growth is planned, with a target for offshore wind capacity of 50 gigawatts by 2030. Solar power has also grown exponentially from a small base.
Reaching the 2030 renewable energy target will require further expansion of wind, solar, and other renewables. It will also likely require firm backup from nuclear, natural gas, batteries, and other sources during periods of low renewable output. The UK faces challenges in transforming its energy system, but has made significant progress so far.
Current State of Renewables
The UK has seen significant growth in renewable energy sources over the past decade. As of 2021, renewable energy accounted for 42% of total electricity generation, up from just 7.7% in 2010. This represents a more than five-fold increase in the renewable energy share over the past decade.
The main renewable energy sources contributing to this growth have been onshore and offshore wind, along with solar photovoltaics. In 2021, wind power accounted for 24% of total electricity generation, while solar accounted for 4%.
This growth in renewables has been driven by falling technology costs, government subsidies, and binding EU renewable energy targets. The UK is aiming to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
Growth of Wind Power
Wind power has grown rapidly in the UK over the past two decades and is now the country’s largest source of renewable energy. According to the International Energy Agency’s Wind TCP, the total wind power capacity in the UK was 25.7 gigawatts (GW) in 2021, having increased by 11.2 GW that year alone [1]. The UK now has over 11,000 wind turbines installed across the country, with 15 GW of capacity from onshore wind and 15 GW from offshore wind farms [2]. Major offshore wind projects like the Hornsea wind farm in the North Sea have added substantially to capacity. In 2021, wind generated 64.5 terawatt-hours of electricity, meeting around 24% of the UK’s total demand. The growth of wind power has been a key factor in the expansion of renewable energy in the UK electricity mix and its transition away from fossil fuels.
Growth of Solar Power
The UK has seen remarkable growth in solar power capacity over the past decade. According to the Greenmatch, the UK’s solar capacity increased from just 5,488.6 MW in 2014 to over 13,259 MW by June 2019. This represents a massive 141% increase in solar capacity in just 5 years. One of the reasons for this rapid growth is that solar power has become the cheapest form of electricity generation in the UK.
In fact, a 2019 government report found that solar power is now cheaper than gas and nuclear energy, making it the most affordable way to generate electricity. This cost advantage, combined with favorable government policies, has enabled the solar industry to thrive. The UK is now in the top 10 countries globally for solar capacity and the amount of solar energy produced annually continues to rise each year.
Decline of Fossil Fuels
The UK has set aggressive timelines to phase out coal-fired power plants. As of March 2023, the UK had already reduced coal’s share of electricity generation from 40% in 2012 to just 1.8%1. Critical policies that made coal economically unviable included carbon pricing, emission limits, and subsidies for renewables. The UK plans to end coal power completely by October 20242. Only 4 coal plants remain active, down from 59 plants in 2012.
Usage of natural gas for electricity generation has also declined, from 41% in 2012 to 37% in 20201. This reduction is partly attributed to increases in renewables displacing gas. However, gas still accounts for a large portion of UK electricity and further declines are needed to meet climate goals.
Nuclear Energy
Nuclear power currently generates around 15% of the UK’s electricity, from 6.5 GW of installed capacity according to the World Nuclear Association (source). However, most existing nuclear plants are scheduled to retire by the end of the decade.
As of 2022, the UK had 15 operational nuclear reactors at 7 different power stations, with a total capacity of 7.7 GW according to Wikipedia (source). This is a significant decline from nuclear’s peak in 1998, when it provided over 25% of the country’s electricity.
The UK government has plans to build new nuclear capacity to replace retiring plants. Construction is underway on the 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C station, and there are proposals for additional new reactors at Sizewell and Bradwell (source). However, the future role of nuclear beyond 2030 is uncertain due to the long construction times and high costs of new nuclear plants.
Grid Upgrades Needed
The UK will require significant upgrades to its energy grid infrastructure in order to enable the further growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. According to analysis from National Grid, the grid network was originally designed around large fossil fuel power stations located close to centers of electricity demand. But renewables like wind and solar produce power more intermittently and are often located in more remote areas. This requires new transmission lines to transport the power and upgrades like digitalization to balance supply and demand.
National Grid has proposed major new transmission projects to unlock capacity for 80GW of renewable energy, which they estimate will require an investment of £1.6 billion. These include the £1.8 billion Viking Link between the UK and Denmark enabling greater sharing of renewable energy, and £2.8 billion East Coast onshore and offshore transmission reinforcement. Such upgrades will be critical to support the UK’s goals to generate 50GW of offshore wind by 2030, and enable up to 40GW of solar PV and 30GW of onshore wind over the same period.
Energy Storage
Energy storage is a crucial component for integrating more renewable energy into the UK’s electricity grid. As wind and solar power are intermittent energy sources that fluctuate based on weather conditions, energy storage provides a way to capture excess electricity when production is high and discharge it when needed ([1]). This helps balance supply and demand on the grid.
The most common form of energy storage in the UK currently is pumped hydro power, which accounts for 97% of energy storage capacity. Pumped hydro plants pump water uphill into reservoirs when electricity supply exceeds demand and then release it through turbines to generate electricity when needed (https://www.energy-storage.news/800mwh-of-utility-scale-energy-storage-capacity-added-in-the-uk-during-2022/). However, growth has recently shifted towards battery storage, especially lithium-ion batteries. The capacity of battery storage projects under construction reached 3.8GW by the end of 2022.
Industry analysts project major growth ahead for battery storage. One forecast estimates the UK’s utility-scale battery capacity will increase over 15 times from 2021 to 2030 as costs continue to fall ([2]). Batteries provide greater flexibility than pumped hydro and can be installed nearly anywhere. Government auctions have also helped stimulate battery storage deployment.
Further growth in energy storage will be vital for the UK to meet its renewable energy goals. Pumped hydro and batteries are likely to play major roles, along with evaluating emerging technologies like compressed air and thermal storage.
Challenges Remaining
While renewable energy has grown substantially in the UK, there are still challenges that need to be addressed for it to reach higher levels of penetration. Three key challenges are intermittency, planning issues, and costs.
Intermittency refers to the fact that renewable sources like wind and solar are weather-dependent and provide variable output that doesn’t always match demand. This makes grid balancing and stability more difficult (Source). Upgrades like more interconnections, demand response, and energy storage can help manage intermittency.
Planning issues like permitting, grid connections, and public acceptance have slowed down some renewable projects. Streamlining planning processes could accelerate deployment (Source).
While costs of renewables have fallen substantially, upfront capital costs are still higher than fossil fuels. Ongoing subsidies and incentives are needed in the interim to spur more investment and bring costs down further through economies of scale and technology improvements (Source).
Outlook for the Future
The UK has set ambitious targets for renewable energy growth by 2030 and beyond. The UK government aims to generate 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030, up from around 45% in 2021 (1). The UK also has a legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050, which will require continued expansion of renewable energy.
To reach these goals, the UK will need to significantly grow offshore and onshore wind, solar PV, renewable hydrogen, and other renewable energy sources. The UK’s official renewables roadmap estimates that 30-50GW of offshore wind, 20GW of onshore wind, and up to 5GW of tidal stream power will be needed by 2030 (2). Solar PV capacity may need to quadruple from current levels. There are also ambitious targets for low carbon hydrogen production from renewables.
Reaching 50% renewable electricity will require major grid upgrades, enhanced flexibility through storage and demand response, and likely continued reliance on natural gas for peak demand periods in the medium term. Depending on the speed of deployment, the UK has the potential to reach 60-65% renewable electricity penetration by 2030.
