UK Renewable Energy Capacity Surpasses Fossil Fuels

The Renewable Energy capacity in the UK has tripled in the past 5 years - this is even faster than the ‘dash for gas’ of the 1990s. Not only that, the capacity for fossil fuels has fallen by one-third due to power stations becoming uneconomic or coming to the end of their life.

Many experts thought that this would be unthinkable of a few years ago, however between July and September 2018, the capacity of Renewables reached 41.9 gigawatts. This exceeded 41.2 gigawatts capacity pf coal, gas and oil-fired power plants.

Dr Iain Staffell from Imperial College London, who undertook the research, said: “Britain’s power system is slowly but surely walking away from fossil fuels, and this quarter saw a major milestone on the journey.”

In the past year alone, coal capacity has fallen by one-quarter, resulting in only 6 coal-fired plants being left in the UK.