Sustainable Energy Facts | January 2024 Everything you need to know right now about Sustainable Energy and Delivering Net Zero | Renewable Energy Trends in 2023 According to official Government data; renewable electricity generation was 30.1 TWh in Quarter 3 2023, 6.8% higher than 2022 and a record for the third quarter of a year. Most of the increase was in wind generation driven by higher wind speeds and new onshore and offshore capacity. Solar PV generation was down slightly on 2022 with new capacity being offset by shorter average sunlight hours. Over the last year, 2.9 GW of new renewable capacity has been added, a 5.4% increase. The largest contribution to new capacity was in solar PV, which at 1.1 GW, is the highest for almost six years and continues to be driven by small scale installations. New capacity in offshore and onshore wind accounted for most of the remaining new capacity at 0.9 GW and 0.8 GW respectively. Renewables’ share of electricity generation was 44.5% in Quarter 3 2023, up 8.2 percentage points on last year due to a combination of the increase in renewable generation and a fall in total generation. The share of renewables has now outstripped fossil fuels’ share for four consecutive quarters. Renewables’ share of electricity generation - Q3 2021 and Q3 2022 Bioenergy
Offshore wind
Onshore wind
Solar Hydro PV
Percentage of total electricity generation Source: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Statistical Release 21 December 2023 Marr Wind Farm, Yorkshire - one of our recent successful projects
| Review of COP28 There was a lot of pressure on the conference to either ‘phase out’ or ‘phase down’ global fossil fuel usage as part of the energy transition. Countries agreed on the need to ‘transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems’, and the second draft of the Global Stocktake claimed: “The countries will contribute to transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” This was clearly a positive step but does not call for a complete phase-out of fossil fuels which may mean global warming targets cannot be kept in reach. Read the full article on our website here