Saturday, 29 March 2014

UK renewable electricity generation rose 28% in 2013

U.K. renewable power generation rose 28 percent last year as more wind farms and solar plants came online, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said.

Wind, solar, hydro and biomass plants generated 52.8 terawatt-hours of power last year, taking the share of renewables in the total power mix to 14.8 percent from 11.3 percent in 2012, DECC said today in an e-mailed report.
The surge was mainly due to higher wind capacity. That’s bringing Britain closer to meeting its European Union target of getting 15 percent of all energy, including heating and transportation fuels, from renewables by 2020. The government is targeting about 30 percent of electricity from renewables because of slower progress in heat and transport.
“By developing our wind resource we ease our reliance on costly imported foreign fuels and reduce the amount of polluting CO2 in our atmosphere,” Jennifer Webber, director of external affairs at the RenewableUK industry group, said in a statement.
Generating capacity from renewables rose by a quarter to 19.4 gigawatts at the end of 2013 from 15.5 gigawatts a year earlier, according to DECC. “More than one in eight U.K. homes is now powered from clean renewable sources, at an extra cost to the typical household of less than 1 pound ($1.66) a week,” said Nina Skorupska, chief executive officer of the Renewable Energy Association, another trade group.
Onshore wind power rose 36 percent to 16.5 terawatt-hours and offshore wind rose 46 percent to 10.9 terawatt-hours, according to the report. Solar power rose 70 percent to 2 terawatt-hours; bioenergy rose 23 percent to 18.7 terawatt-hours and hydro power fell 11 percent to 4.7 terawatt-hours.

Copyright 2014 Bloomberg

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/03/uk-renewable-electricity-generation-rose-28-percent-in-2013

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