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Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

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UK is On Track to Miss its Renewable Energy Goals

  • The UK has become the first G7 nation to phase out coal power generation.
  • The UK is on track to miss its wind and solar capacity targets as operational and investment constraints are hampering a faster pace of installations.
  • A shortfall has opened between the government target and the actual pace of wind and solar capacity installations.
Scotland wind energy

Despite government pledges and efforts to have clean power provide nearly all of Britain’s electricity by 2030, the UK is on track to miss its wind and solar capacity targets as operational and investment constraints are hampering a faster pace of installations.

This is the forecast of consultancy Cornwall Insight, which said this week that Britain is projected to miss its Clean Power 2030 targets for offshore and onshore wind and solar PV by as much as 32 gigawatts (GW) compared to the latest goals set by the government last month.  

Challenges to Clean Power 2030

While the UK has made huge progress in clean energy installations in recent years – including becoming the first G7 nation to phase out coal power generation – much more is needed to have 95% clean power by 2030.

Getting closer to the goal will require market reforms and addressing other governance and regulatory issues in market access, on top of creating an investment climate and local industry supportive of clean energy installations.

With all these challenges, a shortfall has opened between the government target and the actual pace of wind and solar capacity installations.

Last month, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the UK would aim for 95% clean power by 2030, down from a Labour party pledge of “zero carbon electricity” by the end of the decade.

The government has committed to doubling onshore wind energy by 2030, quadrupling offshore wind, and trebling solar power by the end of the decade.

Even with the revised-down capacity targets in the government’s ‘Clean Power 2030 Action Plan’, the data from Cornwall Insight’s GB Benchmark Power Curve is projecting a shortfall in capacity.

According to Cornwall Insight’s modeling, the gap in solar PV capacity would be the widest, with a 16 GW shortfall compared to the 45-47 GW government target. Solar is projected to surge by 70% compared to the 17 GW installed today. But with an expected 29 GW by 2030, the forecast capacity is 16 GW short of the 45 GW goal.

Despite the legislative push for onshore wind – where the government lifted the de facto ban on onshore wind, Cornwall Insight projects growth would be 10 GW short of the 27-29 GW goal, as planning issues continue to hamper the progress of projects at the scale needed.

Offshore wind would come closest to the target, falling just 6 GW short of the 43-50 GW government goal. The Contract for Difference (CfD) allocation rounds have been supporting offshore wind despite cost inflation in the sector, according to Cornwall Insight.

“Despite promising progress, the gap between this growth and government targets underscores the urgent need to address both the operational and investment barriers slowing renewables growth,” said Tom Musker, Modelling Manager at Cornwall Insight.

“Grid connection delays, supply chain constraints, and uncertainty surrounding electricity market reforms are all creating a challenging environment for developers. Without swift and decisive action to resolve these issues, the UK risks falling significantly behind its clean power ambitions.”

Wind Overtakes Natural Gas

Wind power overtook natural gas to become – for the first time ever – the UK’s largest source of electricity generation for a full year in 2024, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) said earlier this month.

Last year, wind was the largest source of electricity generation for the first year ever, accounting for 30%, NESO said in its 2024 electricity review.

The share of natural gas averaged 26.3% last year, while nuclear accounted for 14%, and solar represented 5% of the UK power generation in 2024.

Last year saw a monumental moment in Britain’s electricity system with the switching-off of the last remaining coal power plant in the country. The plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar was shut at the end of September, ending 142 years of coal-fired electricity generation in the UK.

While its power system is becoming greener, the UK now sees power spikes when demand is high in the winter while wind generation is low.

In contrast, the government’s Clean Power target means that by 2030, Great Britain will generate enough clean power to meet our total annual electricity demand, backed up by an unabated gas supply to be used only when essential.

With the 2030 target just five years away and renewable energy installations lagging behind goals and experiencing ups and downs due to the nature of power generation from wind and solar, the UK may have to rely on natural gas to keep its power system stable for longer than planned.

While Britain has made progress in recent years in decarbonizing the grid and boosting the share of renewables in the power mix to a record high, it still uses a lot of natural gas for electricity generation, home heating, and boilers.

At the end of last year, NESO warned in a report that Britain’s transition to a low-carbon energy system is fraught with challenges, including the need for massive investments in transmission and demand pattern changes.

NESO said that “Clean power is a huge challenge but is achievable for Great Britain by 2030.”

However, achieving this goal would need to see the UK doing things differently. These include efforts from the government with electricity market reforms and continued support for CfD auctions, the industry willing to invest in massive expansion despite the current cost challenges, and the public voluntarily adopting more efficient appliances, new and smart technology, and flexible demand.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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