According to RenewableUK, the British trade association for wind, wave and tidal power industries, onshore wind capacity installations fell by nearly 80% in 2018 to its lowest level since 2011, reaching 598 MW (263 turbines at 54 sites). These figures have plummeted compared with 2017, when nearly 2.7 GW were installed.
The main driver behind this drop is the closure of the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme for new onshore wind in 2017, which also contributed to the record capacity deployment that year. Besides, new onshore wind projects have been barred from competing in the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, which uses competitive price auctions to select new renewable projects at the lowest cost.
This announcement adds to the gap in carbon-free energy needed to meet the UK’s carbon targets and follows the announcement of the Japanese company Hitachi suspending the development of the 2.7 GW Wylfa Newydd nuclear power plant project in Anglesey, in North Wales. According to an analysis developed by RenewableUK on the basis of the Committee on Climate Change work, the United Kingdom will face a power supply gap of 55 TWh by 2030 due to the closure of existing nuclear plants and other ageing power plants slated for closure in the next decade.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.