The latest figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), published today, show that solar capacity stood at nearly 5GW across more than 650,000 installations at the end of December 2014.
The government data also reveals a 4.4 per cent rise in solar capacity to 4,388 MW at the end of 2014 Q3, compared with 4204 MW at the end of Q2.
Capacity commissioned and accredited under the Renewables Obligation (RO) in Q3 stood at 1,503 MW, up 5.3 per cent from Q2.
Decc states that capacity accredited under the RO represents 34 per cent of total solar deployment, unaccredited capacity represents less than 12 per cent and capacity confirmed on Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) represents 54 per cent of total UK solar deployment.
As solar capacity continues to rise, areport from the Solar Trade Association (STA) late last year suggested that generating electricity from solar farms will be cheaper than burning gas by as early as 2018.