New Government must support low-carbon energy

The new Government should send an early signal that it's serious about supporting low-carbon energy to attract investment and create jobs, RenewableUK have urged.

Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, commented: "We hope that one of the new Government's priorities will be to act quickly to secure our home-grown energy supplies based on clean sources including wind, wave and tidal power.

“We urge the new administration to confirm the importance of onshore wind as an essential part of our electricity mix, as it is one of the most cost effective ways to generate electricity, and is consistently supported by two-thirds of the public. As long as we can continue on our current course, onshore wind will be the cheapest of all power sources by 2020, so it makes sense to support it.

“For the renewable energy sector as a whole, the most important signal that the Government could send to show that it’s serious about cleaning up the way we generate electricity would be to set a clear 2030 decarbonisation target to provide long term certainty. This would attract the investment needed for growth.

“More than 34,000 people now owe their livelihoods to the British wind industry, onshore and offshore. Britain's global lead in offshore wind is bringing major manufacturers to the UK. If the new Government values that green growth and is serious about stimulating the economy, it needs to get behind this industry as swiftly as possible.”


New figures from the Government show that low-carbon electricity hit record new levels in 2014, despite a number of nuclear outages.

A total of 38.3% of all power came from low-carbon source last year, up from 34.6% in 2013, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change figures.

Low-carbon energy sources in the UK include nuclear power alongside renewables like wind, solar, biomass and hydro.

Growth in renewables

Last year saw a number of power outages at nuclear plants, which led to a 9.7% drop in power from these sources. However, the growth in renewable energies helped offset this fall.

Overall, renewable electricity generation hit a record high of 19.2%, up from 14.9% in 2013.

Wind and solar rose by 16.6% thanks to more capacity becoming available. Hydro rose by 26% as a result of heavier rainfall in 2014.


Drop in coal

Of the traditional sources, there was a divide between coal and gas.

Gas’s share of power generation rose from 26.6% to 30.2%. This was partly down to the fact that there were lower wholesale gas prices in the summer boosting demand.

The rise in gas generation also helped meet the shortfall caused by nuclear outages.

However, coal’s share dropped from 36.4% to 29.1%, putting its generation levels at a record low – and below low-carbon sources.

The drop was down to plant closures and the conversion of a second unit at Drax Power Station from coal to biomass.

Overall, final consumption of electricity in 2014 across the country was 4.3% lower than in 2013. This was the lowest level in the last 17 years.

Domestic consumption fell by 5.5%, partly due to a warmer winter. In fact, temperatures on average in 2014 were over a degree higher than in 2013.

Industrial use of electricity fell 6.3% while consumption by commercial and other users dropped by 1%.

Andrew Crowther, energy analyst at Strutt & Parker said: “The new figures release by the Government show that despite a changing global and political landscape, the renewable and low carbon industries are still strong.

"The UK is however still lagging behind in comparison to European countries where renewables alone can regularly provide around 30% of the total energy supply.

"If the UK is to meet the EU Energy and climate goal of 27% total energy from renewable sources by 2030, we will need to see continued support from Government, something that is uncertain past the 2017 closure of the Renewables Obligation (RO) and current Contracts for Difference (CfD) uncertainty.”