Renewables powering more electricity than any other source

New data has shown that 45 per cent of electricity generation between January and March came from renewables and exceeded levels of the total fossil fuel generation for that period by a margin of 36 per cent.

Analysts EnAppSys found that in the quarter, 44.6 per cent of power came from renewables and 29.1 per cent from gas-fired plants. The remaining power came from nuclear (15.3 per cent), imports (7.3 per cent) and coal plants (3.7 per cent).

The data also revealed that power output from windfarms pushed passed 10GW for 63 per cent of the quarter and more than 5GW for 85 per cent of the quarter. At the same time, nuclear generated its smallest volume since Q3 in 2008, producing 12.2TWh in the quarter as ‘the older reactors have been seeing increasing levels of downtime as they move towards the end of their operational life’.

Paul Verrill, director of EnAppSys, said: "Whilst the 'stay at home' measures reduced demand in the last weeks of March, which increased the contribution of renewables, wind farms generated significantly more power than gas-fired plants, which historically have been the dominant fuel type for electricity generation in Great Britain for some years now."