A report published today by EY said investment in conventional generation remained at £200 million last year.
The group put this down to the ongoing construction of the 880MW combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant in Carrington, scheduled to commission in 2016.
Investment in renewable electricity generation assets saw a 6 per cent increase since 2013, to more than £9 billion.
However, investment in different technology types varied substantially. While wind generation saw an increase of 35 per cent in 2014, solar PV investment fell 15 per cent. EY put this down to a reduction in the level of support available for the technology.
What’s more, it is expected that there will be another rush for new projects to commission in the first quarter of 2016, before the Renewables Obligation (RO) is closed to smaller solar farms and proposed changes to the rules around access to the Feed-in Tariff are introduced, analysts said.
The report further predicted that onshore wind investment will fall following the government’s decision to end the RO earlier than anticipated.
“Future renewables investment is likely to be constrained by recent changes to the support regime for low-carbon technologies, the potential lack of budget for further Contracts for Difference allocations to 2020 and the lack of visibility on the level of funding beyond 2020,” they added.
While investment in new interconnection remained at very low levels in 2014, greater investment is expected to begin soon, the report suggested, with the ElecLink interconnector to France due to commission in 2016, the Nemo Link to Belgium anticipated to go into commercial operation in 2019, and the NSN Link to Norway due for commissioning in 2021.
The gas and electricity networks saw investment of £5.2 billion in 2014, equal to about one-third of total investment in the energy sector in that year, with more than £400 million invested in smart technologies.
This investment was mostly on research and development, but also included initial deployment of smart energy technologies such as smart meters, smart grids and energy storage.