In Q1 this year, renewable energy generation was responsible for 25.1% of the UK’s electricity generation, beating the previous Q1 record achieved in 2015 by 2.3%. With wind and rainfall lower than expected for the time of year, the surge in solar PV deployment in the 18 months prior has been credited for helping renewable energy produce a new quarterly record (23.2 TWh).
Solar PV, on its own, generated over 1.3 TWh in Q1, equivalent to supplying the average electricity demand of around 400,000 homes in the UK. This generation was also 41% higher than solar generation in Q1 of 2015; a huge achievement for the industry.
The above record comes just a few weeks after announcing that solar PV produced record generation in June this year, generating 23.9% of the UK’s total electricity demand.
As it stands, the UK currently has around 12GW of solar PV deployed across homes, commercial rooftops and ground mount solar farms. Over 4GW – one third – of this was installed in 2015 alone however the industry is unlikely to see a similar rate of growth due to recent cuts to the feed in tariff and RO schemes.
Whilst the above is another great achievement for the industry, the news should also resonate with the commercial rooftop sector that offers the biggest opportunity for future solar deployment and highlights that an installation can offer benefits at both company level and collectively to meet wider renewable generation and carbon reduction targets.