The amount of electricity generated in the UK fell slightly last year, with lower rainfall and wind speeds affecting both hydro and wind schemes, according to the latest set of official statistics.
Published today, the Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics show the total amount generated from renewable sources fell by 0.2 per cent between 2015 and 2016, to 83.2 TWh.
This was despite total capacity increasing by 16 per cent over the same time period to 35.7 GW.
The report notes “lower rainfall and wind speeds” led to lower hydro and wind generation last year.
Onshore wind generation fell by 8.4 per cent to 21 TWh and offshore fell by 5.8 per cent to 16.4 GWh, although the report adds wind speeds in 2015 were the highest they had been for 15 years.
Generation from hydro schemes fell by 14 per cent to 5.4 TWh and again the report adds there had been exceptionally high rainfall in the previous year.
But there was a large increase in the amount of energy generated through solar PV, which soared by 38 per cent to a record level of 10.4 TWh.
“This is the result of a large increase in capacity from both smaller installations supported by the Feed in Tariff (FiT) and particularly larger schemes supported by the Renewables Obligation,” the report states.
“Although this increase in capacity has resulted in solar photovoltaics being the leading technology by capacity, its share of generation is fourth after onshore wind, offshore wind, and bioenergy.”
And generation from bioenergy increased by 2.7 per cent to 30.0 TWh, whilst capacity increased by 9.1 per cent to 5.7 GW last year.