I came across some interesting data (source DECC) on UK renewable energy capacity and output for last year.
First installed capacity.
Table 1. Capacity
|
Installed capacity (MW) |
31/12/2010 |
31/12/2011 |
Capacity increase |
Increase as % |
|
Onshore wind |
4,037 |
4,632 |
595 |
15% |
|
Offshore wind |
1,341 |
1,838 |
497 |
37% |
|
Wave/tidal |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0% |
|
Solar PV |
77 |
1,014 |
937 |
1219% |
|
Hydro |
1,648 |
1,660 |
12 |
1% |
|
Landfill Gas |
1,025 |
1,062 |
37 |
4% |
|
Sewage gas |
189 |
203 |
14 |
7% |
|
Waste combustion |
435 |
504 |
69 |
16% |
|
Biomass |
448 |
1,235 |
787 |
176% |
|
Total |
9,203 |
12,151 |
2,948 |
32% |
Now look at the output in the following table.
Table 2. Output
|
Installed capacity (GWh) |
31/12/2010 |
31/12/2011 |
Increase |
Increase as % |
|
Onshore wind |
7,137 |
10,416 |
3279 |
46% |
|
Offshore wind |
3,044 |
5,109 |
2065 |
68% |
|
Wave/tidal |
2 |
1 |
-1 |
-61% |
|
Solar PV |
33 |
259 |
225 |
678% |
|
Hydro |
3,603 |
5,694 |
2091 |
58% |
|
Landfill Gas |
5,037 |
5,345 |
308 |
6% |
|
Sewage gas |
702 |
755 |
53 |
8% |
|
Waste combustion |
1,594 |
1,732 |
137 |
9% |
|
Co-firing |
2,506 |
3,061 |
555 |
22% |
|
Biomass |
2,076 |
2,383 |
307 |
15% |
|
Total |
25,734 |
34,755 |
9,019 |
35% |
When I came across this data a number of things stood out.
- Onshore wind isn’t completely useless even in a “still” year (2010) it produces a lot of electricity.
- However Offshore wind is disproportionately effective.
- The increase in PV electricity output has been massive and the data doesn’t do it justice. Most capacity was added in late 2011 to beat the FIT cut deadline. As I posted above the PV output in the first quarter of 2012 was 0.17TWh (170GWh).
- This made me wonder could PV output overtake anything else in that table this year? The first three months are not the best in terms of PV output and something like 500MWp of new capacity has been added since (and the year is not over).
It seems unlikely that PV will overtake either type of wind output yet, but it should overtake the lower entries in the table such as sewage gas and waste combustion and with a few more years of the current installation rate be lapping around hydro.
Quick update I’m going to stick my neck out and say PV electricity production in the UK will be close to 2TWh in the UK in 2012.
Encouraging, but as I have said before electricity is the easy bit of peak oil…
Neil