UK’s coal, wind, solar and hydro output fell in 2016

The UK’s coal, wind, solar and natural flow hydropower all decreased in output through 2016. That’s according to a new report from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), […]

The UK’s coal, wind, solar and natural flow hydropower all decreased in output through 2016.

That’s according to a new report from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which breaks down a range of provisional energy data from last year.

It shows total energy production still increased, thanks to rising output from oil, gas, bioenergy and nuclear.

However, at 1.2%, this was far below the 9.6% increase observed between 2014 and 2015.

The report says final energy consumption was 1.1% higher than the year before, with rises in the domestic, transport and services sectors offsetting a decrease in the industrial sector.

Gas accounted for 42.4% of power generated in the UK through the year (up 13%), coal accounted for 9.1% (down 13%) and nuclear’s share of generation marginally increased by 0.4% to 21.2%.

Renewable electricity generation was 82.8TWh, 1% less than the 83.6TWh seen in 2015 – wind production alone fell a significant 7%.

Although the green share of electricity generation decreased by 0.2% to 24.4% in 2016, renewable electricity capacity was actually 13.7% higher than a year earlier.

On a global scale, renewable energy saw record growth of 161GW in 2016.

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