Total capacity available from renewables in the UK has overtaken fossil fuels for the first time, according to a new report.
The latest Drax Electric Insights report said that renewables have the biggest share of the country’s electricity generating infrastructure, overtaking the 40.6GW of capacity available from fossil fuels.
A third of fossil fuel generating capacity has retired over the last five years, according to the report. The capacity from wind, solar, biomass, hydro and other renewables has tripled, taking the total renewable capacity available on the system to 42GW.
Wind farms provide the biggest share of renewables capacity, with more than 20GW available. Solar comes in second providing more than 13GW, biomass was third with 3.2GW.
Biomass played an important role in helping to tip the balance from fossil fuels to renewables with two coal-to-biomass conversions being completed during the third quarter of the year at Lynemouth in Northumberland and Drax Power Station’s Unit 4 conversion in Yorkshire. This added 1GW of capacity in total.
Drax Power chief executive Andy Koss said: “More renewables are crucial for reducing carbon emissions and helping us to meet our climate targets – but flexible, lower carbon generation, is also clearly vital for controlling the costs of maintaining a stable, low carbon power system.
“The IPCC’s report recognised that in order to meet our climate change targets, up to 85% of global power generation needs to come from renewables by 2050. This means the remainder will have to be provided by flexible sources, which can support the system and help to keep costs down – such as biomass, hydro, pumped storage as well as high efficiency gas.”