In a windfall for more than a million households, the amount of electricity generated by solar panels hit an all-time high in the first five months of the year.
Britain’s sunniest spring yet has generated a record amount of solar power, delivering a windfall for the million-plus households with solar panels.
The country had 43 per cent more sunshine than average for the season, the most since modern records began 115 years ago, the Met Office said this week. The sunny weather has triggered a boom in electricity generation from solar panels on rooftops and in fields.
Data from the National Energy System Operator shows that a total of 7.6 terawatt hours of electricity was generated from solar over the first five months of the year — and average output peaked at nearly 3,400 megawatts in May.
The five-month total is up 42 per cent on the same period last year and is an all-time high, according to the website Carbon Brief, which analysed the figures.
Solar power, whose capacity Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, hopes to triple by 2030, is the sixth biggest source of electricity in the UK, behind others including gas, wind and nuclear.
However, it is playing an increasingly important role during spring and summer, when demand for electricity is lower. For the first time, solar accounted for more than a tenth of monthly electricity generation for two months in a row, March and April.
Simon Evans, senior policy editor at the climate and energy website Carbon Brief, said: “Solar power is rising faster than most people realise. It is cheap, fast to install and every unit of electricity it generates here in the UK displaces two units of imported gas.”
There are 1.5 million homes with solar panels. Analysis of official figures by the solar company Gryd Energy shows households are installing them at three times the rate of businesses.
The sunshine will have cut energy bills for households because they need to draw less power from the grid, and solar owners including the Red Dwarf actor Robert Llewellyn have shared examples of high generation from their panels on social media.
It will also have earned significant payments from energy suppliers for the thousands of people still on valuable “feed-in tariffs” — long-term contracts launched in 2010 before being scrapped in 2019. Energy billpayers without solar will feel little financial benefit, though, because of how the price of electricity is set.
The solar power record stems not only from sunny conditions but also an expansion in capacity: two in five new homes have solar panels. Officially there is 18.2 gigawatts of capacity nationally, up from 17.2 gigawatts a year ago. The industry body Solar Energy UK says the true figure is even higher.
Britain’s biggest solar farm, a vast 370-megawatt installation announced eight years ago near Faversham in Kent, is expected to be fully complete within weeks. Even bigger solar farms, some of which have caused consternation for nearby residents, have been given the green light by Miliband since he took office. The government is also mulling mandating solar panels on new car parks.
Spring has become sunnier since the 1980s, the Met Office has found — there were 653.3 sunshine hours this season — and spring months have been about 15 per cent sunnier over the past decade than the average between 1961 and 1990.
The Times UK