The UK’s investment in renewable energy has lagged significantly behind the rest of the world in recent years, according to an analysis of global data.
The latest government figures reveal the UK’s renewable capacity has fallen to an average increase of 4.45% in the past three years, compared with an average 9.67% annual increase globally.
The analysis follows the government’s announcement that it will approve more than 100 new oil and gas licences.
In the UK, total renewable capacity grew by 1.96% in 2020, 3.65% in 2021 and 7.74% in 2022, averaging a capacity of just 4.45% a year – well down from the 24.26% growth recorded in 2015.
The rest of the world recorded much higher levels of growth in renewable capacity compared with the UK in the last three years. In 2020, renewable capacity grew by 10.3%, followed by 9.1% in 2021 and 9.6% in 2022. This averages a 9.67% increase, more than double that of the UK over the same period.
The Liberal Democrats’ energy and climate spokesperson, Wera Hobhouse, criticised the government’s failure “to invest in the greenest, cheapest and most popular form of energy” and demanded it do more, including removing restrictions on new solar and wind and empowering local authorities to support decentralised energy that will “not only bring down bills, but also provide skilled jobs for the future”.
She said the figures showed the Conservative party could not be trusted with the environment. “They would rather new onshore oilfields than solar farms and wind turbines,” she said.
Roger Fouquet, a senior research fellow at the Energy Studies Institute in the National University of Singapore, said that as countries such as Iceland move towards 100% renewable energy, “its investment is likely to slow down, only increasing to meet the rising demand of power”. However, he noted that the UK cannot compare.
“The UK’s current renewable electricity capacity is below 50%, and has a great deal of further investment to undertake to claim to be a leader in low-carbon energy systems. In fact, 45% of European economies have a higher share of renewable electricity capacity,” Fouquet said.
RenewableUK, a leading non-profit energy trade association, believes the government needs to develop a plan to compete with the EU and US in a competitive renewables market.
Its executive director of policy, Ana Musat, said: “The government urgently needs to develop a comprehensive strategy for making the UK renewables sector the most attractive to global investors, so that we can continue to build new clean energy projects at scale and attract supply chain investment in key areas such as blades, cables and floating offshore wind.”
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We won’t apologise for moving faster and earlier on renewable energy than many other countries, and we are glad to see that nations across Europe and the rest of the world are starting to catch up.
“We have already attracted around £120bn investment in renewables since 2010, and are expected to attract a further £100bn in net zero by 2030 – powering up Britain and supporting up to 480,000 jobs. This has meant we have increased the amount of energy coming from renewables from 6.7% in 2010 to 41.5% in 2022.”
