Around the world, 2023 was a year that broke energy records, with both our consumption and global emissions reaching all-time highs. That is the finding from the Energy Institute’s latest Statistical Review of World Energy, published in June. Putting the UK’s energy transition in a global context shows that although we continue to make significant progress, our pace of change is stalling compared to our international competitors.
UK renewables continue to expand
The UK is producing more electricity from renewable sources than ever before, and our emissions are less than half than what they were in 1990. In 2023, the UK was the 20th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, down from 18th in 2022. We must continue our great start in this area and get our emissions to Net Zero by 2050. Moreover, the latest Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index, sees the UK move from 7th to 6th place globally, thanks to the increased government funding given to the latest Contracts for Difference round and the rapid growth of the battery energy storage sector.
The UK is ranking lower for wind power generation
Figure 1: Rank of wind power generation
Source: Energy UK analysis of Energy Institute (2024), Statistical Review of World Energy
Historically, the UK has been a world-leader in terms of wind power. However, a lack of new onshore wind development has allowed us to slip in the rankings globally. While we currently account for a fifth (20% of global offshore wind capacity, and in 2023 added more offshore capacity than all countries except China and the Netherlands, the UK needs to get building more onshore windfarms to decarbonise our power sector.
The UK is missing out on a solar revolution
Figure 2: solar PV generation, selected European countries
Source: Energy UK analysis of Energy Institute (2024), Statistical Review of World Energy
Global electricity generation from solar energy has more than doubled over the past five years, going from 706TWh in 2019 to 1642TWh in 2023. Our European neighbours have played their part in this solar gold rush, ramping up their generation significantly. Over that same period, the UK’s production has stalled – our growth rate for 2023 was 4.1% vs a European average of 18.2% and a global average of 24.2%. In order to meet the new government’s target of Government’s target of 50GW of capacity by 2030 from our current standpoint at 17GW, we must massively scale up our efforts.
Once strong, UK renewables have fallen behind the world average
Change in renewable energy generation since 2010
Source: Energy UK analysis of Energy Institute (2024), Statistical Review of World Energy
Historically, the UK has been a world leader in the production of renewable electricity. Since 2010, we developed our production of renewable energy quicker than the world as a whole, but our progress in the past few years has stalled and in 2023 we fell behind.
It is vital that we redouble our efforts to remain a key global player in renewables. The UK is well-placed to become an early adopter of technologies including tidal energy, floating offshore wind, and carbon capture and storage technologies. Nuclear, storage, flexibility and interconnectors will all complement renewables in decarbonising the UK.
As Energy UK has set out previously, there is acute global competition for clean energy. It is a competition we are not currently winning. A major challenge for the new Government is determining how to put us back in the race.
