According to preliminary statistics released by the British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), primary energy consumption in the United Kingdom fell by 7% in 2014 (-3.1% with temperature adjustment), following the downward trend of the last nine years. Primary energy production dipped by 2% to 112 Mtoe. Nuclear generation declined due to outages, while production of both coal and oil were at record low levels in 2014 (-10.5% for coal and -2.3% for oil). Since 2000 output of oil has fallen by around 8%/year. In 2014, the UK remained a net importer of petroleum products at 7.6 Mt. Gas production rose by 0.3% (start-up of the Breagh and Jasmine fields) but overall UK Continental Shelf output fell by 1.2%. Gas imports fell by 11% (-19% for pipeline imports but +21% for LNG imports).
The United Kingdom switched from coal to renewables: in 2014, the share of coal in the power mix dropped to 34% (from more than 37%) due to the conversion of a second unit at Drax to biomass and to reduced capacity. Reduced nuclear generation (20% of the power mix in 2014) and low gas prices raised gas-fired generation in 2014: the share of gas rose from 27% in 2013 to 31%.
The energy intensity (energy consumption per unit of economic output) dropped by 5.6% in 2014, thanks to a lower primary consumption and to a 2.6% GDP growth. The ratio has fallen at an average rate of 3%/year since 2000.
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