The UK wind power industry enjoyed a record breaking 2015 against the backdrop of Tory Government cuts to green energy subsidies.
Onshore and offshore turbines combined forces to generate 11% of the UK’s wind last year, up from 9.5% in 2014, RenewableUK said today, citing National Grid statistics supplied by independent data analysts EnAppSys.
A new monthly record was set in December, with wind satisfying 17% of UK energy demand. The previous record of 14% was set in January 2015.
Producers notched up a new weekly record in the last seven days of December, providing a fifth of the nation’s needs.
Wind also broke the quarterly record in the three month period from October to December 2015, meeting 13% of demand.
Gordon Edge, director of policy at RenewableUK, said: “This is a great way to start the new year – the wind industry can be proud that it has shattered weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual generation records in 2015. This re-writes the record books. We’ve had a bumper harvest thanks to increased deployment and superb wind speeds.
“It also demonstrates why the government should continue to support wind energy, as we’re delivering on our commitment to keep Britain powered up. We can continue to increase the proportion of the nation’s electricity which we provide as we move away from fossil fuels to clean sources of power”.
The government has comes under scrutiny from green campaigners over moves to scrap subsidies for new onshore wind farms under the Renewables Obligation scheme, and to reduce payments to existing small-scale wind, hydro and solar projects via the he Feed-in Tariff (FiT) system.
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