A new report published by the UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change reveals that the country has invested approximately £37 billion in renewable energy since 2010, and that there is more to come over the rest of this decade.
The report, Delivering UK Energy Investment, is the third investment report provided by the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) analyzing the progress made in low-carbon energy investment in the UK since 2010. This third report focused particularly on major developments since July, 2014.
The report highlights the more than £42 billion which has been invested into renewables, carbon capture storage (CCS), and nuclear since 2010, with approximately £37 billion of that belonging to renewables. Renewable generating capacity has grown by 165% since 2010, and now accounts for 18% of the country’s electricity needs.
Amidst praising his government’s “successes,” Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change, Ed Davey, writing in the introduction to the report, claims that “electricity capacity from renewable sources has more than doubled in this Parliament.”
“Renewable generation now provides almost a fifth of our electricity needs, powering the equivalent of 14.5 million homes annually. And there is much more in the pipeline. We are one of the most attractive countries in the world for green growth, with almost £37 billion invested in renewable energy since 2010. We lead the world in offshore wind and remain one of the world leaders in marine energy.”
With more than 20 fully operational offshore wind farms totaling 4.4 GW in capacity, and investment between 2010 and 2014 reaching £9.5 billion, the UK is well and above the offshore wind industry leader. Quoting the 2015 Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (PDF) to prove their point, the UK leads China, and Germany.
Onshore wind is also doing well, estimated at attracting £7.9 billion of investment between 2010 and 2014, and supporting 19,000 jobs in 2013. Onshore wind provided approximately 5.5% of the UK’s total electricity generation in 2014, and by 2020 it is estimated that it could account for 9-10% of the country’s electricity generation.
The UK saw investment worth £11.4 billion in the solar PV sector between 2010 and 2014, supporting 34,400 jobs and reaching a total capacity of 5 GW of electricity generated by approximately 650,000 PV installations.
The full report is available from the UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change website, and it dives into much more detail on each of the various renewable energy technologies currently at play across the UK.
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