has increased rapidly in the United Kingdom, growing from roughly 26 terawatt hours in 2010 to some 135 terawatt hours in 2022. In summer 2019, the United Kingdom became the first large economy globally to enact a carbon neutrality law, which would see greenhouse gas emissions reduced to net-zero by 2050. To reach the said target, furthering the use of renewable energies is paramount.
Overall increase in renewable energy production
While
renewables provide roughly 40 of the country's power, the majority of it is generated by wind energy. Wind power experienced the highest growth rates, with onshore and offshore wind farms generating roughly 35 and 45 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2022, respectively. By comparison, in 2000, the combined onshore and offshore wind power production amounted to 946 gigawatt-hours of electricity. The growth in energy production is also reflected in the number of renewable facilities. In 2022, renewable energy generation had seen an increase in its
number of sites in many of its sources, totaling more than a million sites. Unsurprisingly,
wind power plant capacity amounted to 28.5 gigawatts and
solar photovoltaic sites offered a cumulative capacity of 14.7 gigawatts in 2022.
Britain's second biggest source of renewable electricity
Bioenergy is the
second greatest contributor to renewable electricity generation after combined wind power, producing some 35 terawatt hours in 2022. Bioenergy uses bio-based fuels that include power sourced from waste combustion, animal biomass, plant biomass, anaerobic digestion, and co-firing with fossil fuels, although the latter was nearly phased out by 2018. Both sewage gas and landfill gas are a form of bioenergy. In terms of utilization efficiency,
sewage gas has one of the greatest load factors of renewable sources in the UK. The annual average noted only slight fluctuations, between 41 and 49 percent. By comparison,
figures for landfill gas declined from nearly 60 percent in 2010 to 36 percent in 2021, showing that peak demand for said energy source grew quicker than average consumption.
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