It’s been a good couple of months for renewable energy in the UK which, having charted its first ever instance of coal-free power generation last week, has notched up a couple of milestones for both solar and wind energy and their contribution to the grid. First to solar, which reportedly generated more electricity over the week between May 3 and May 9 than coal in the UK. The May achievement was tweeted by the policy editor for Carbonbrief.org, along with the graphs below showing solar surpassing coal for the week. The same was true for two days in April, CleanTechnica reports, when coal generated 3 per cent of electricity, while solar generated 4 per cent on one and 6 per cent on the other. As CleanTechnica notes, this is happening both because of more solar installations around the UK and a falling off of coal, as the economics of the fossil fuel continue to deteriorate. Wind power generation, meanwhile, managed to surpass coal for the first time ever in April, generating 2,290 gigawatt hours (GWh) compared to coal’s 1,755 GWh, according to National Grid statistics.
Renew Economy 19th May 2016 read more »
Renewable energy firms and other low-carbon businesses are making more than £46 billion a year and employing nearly 240,000 people in the UK, according to the first survey of their impact on the economy by the Office for National Statistics. It found that there were more than 96,000 individual businesses involved in the sector in 2014, making up 4.4 per cent of the total number of British firms excluding the financial ones.Scotland had the highest percentage of those kinds of businesses with 5.2 per cent involved in the sector, followed by England (4.4 per cent), Wales (3.9 per cent) and Northern Ireland (3.2 per cent). Lang Banks, director of WWF Scotland, said: “These figures underline the importance of low-carbon businesses to Scotland and the rest of the UK, by helping grow our economy and creating jobs.
Independent 19th May 2016 read more »