Importance of renewable energy emphasised as projects worth £81bn underway

More than £81bn worth of renewable energy projects representing nearly half (47%) of all infrastructure spending in the UK are proposed by 2025 with wind farms accounting for nine out of the 10 key projects, according to figures released today (30 October) by Barbour ADI.


According to the data there are a total of 405 forthcoming renewable energy developments including the £25bn Severn Barrage, phases one to six of the East Anglia One offshore wind farm jointly worth £10.8bn and the £3.75bn Hornsea offshore wind farm.

The research emphasises the importance of wind energy following a report from the Adam Smith Institute and Scientific Alliance published on earlier this week which argues that wind farms are ‘unreliable’ and ‘intermittent’.

Earlier this week edie reported on data from the Lorien Energy Index (LEI) which revealed that wind power energy production in the UK recently overtook nuclear power-plants following Hurricane Gonzalo.

Renewable energy

Barbour ADI’s lead economist Michael Dall said: “According to our latest Economic & Construction Market utilities were the major infrastructure project type in September and this is no surprise given the number and value of contracts being awarded which is due, among other things, to the levels of subsidy currently provided by the Government.

“With a number of these projects already confirmed and many more at early stages of planning, the future of renewable energy construction in the UK looks bright.”

The Government has recently been criticised for its proposal that 5MW+ solar farms will no longer receive financial support through the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme.

Energy figures

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has today updated its provisional energy statistics for the period June to August 2014, compared with the same period last year.

The key updates included: –

– The UK’s primary energy consumption decreased by 3.5%, when taking into account temperature it fell by 4.8%.

– There was a 4.5% decrease in indigenous energy production with oil output down by 12.5% due to maintenance activities.

– Nuclear output is down by 5.1%, whilst gas production is up 1.9%.

– Gas share is now higher than coal, a reverse of the picture seen over the past two years; gas provided 42.8% of electricity generation by major power producers, with coal’s share at 19.4% and nuclear at 24.9%.

– Wind generation by major power producers up 16.1%, due to increased capacity.

– Low carbon share of electricity generation by major power producers rose to 37.8%.

Lois Vallely

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