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The UK generated 19.2% of its electricity from wind, solar, and hydropower in 2014. The country's demand for electricity has also fallen 10% over the last 5 years.
Change doesn't happen in a linear fashion.
Indeed, those of us who have been pushing for a low carbon future would have been forgiven for thinking it was a futile cause just a few years ago. Yet now, change seems to be picking up pace. Dramatically. The latest example of this is news from the UK, reported over at Business Green, that renewables made up 19.2% of the country's power supply last year, up from just 14.9% a year earlier. At the same time, both coal and nuclear dipped, while gas increased its share a little bit too. Digging into what those renewables actually were, it looks like wind and solar were up 16.6% on the previous year, due mainly to new capacity, while hydropower was up 26%. (This was the result of heavier rainfall, so can't necessarily be counted on year-over-year.)
We're going to be seeing many more stories like this in the next few years. It's already been reported that Germany generated 30% of its electricity from renewables in 2014. As industrialized countries, they could well find energy independence through renewables confers key competitive advantages and many positive externalities (such as better air quality). Will the United States ever follow suit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @06:45PM
UK is mostly isolated from other countries and large (there should be some HVDC lines to import from Norway and France thou) but also flat and not known for forests and hot springs, so this makes me wonder. Is it 18% hydro, geothermal and forests to energy and 1% from wind or maybe 70% demand was covered from imports (therefore not produced in UK)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @08:21PM
Or maybe they just shifted some factories to China. Win-win. Higher profits and bigger renewable energy usage percentage-wise.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @03:33AM
...until you realize that Britons whose jobs are now in China can't buy your products.
...and neither can the Chinese who are paid 80p/hr.
Henry Ford and John Maynard Keynes had this figured out about a century ago.
MBAs, OTOH, never study economics.
(Knowing Excel is enough, apparently.)
This is the definition of Global Economic Death Spiral.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Informative) by wantkitteh on Saturday May 02 2015, @08:33PM
Breakdown from government figures [www.gov.uk] shows that onshore/offshore wind combined account for just over half (it looks like), "bioenergy" covers about 40% and Solar PV/hydro fills in the rest. Wave and Tidal is also listed as a category on the stacked bar chart, but it's too small a contribution to actually visibly see. (Disclaimer: 3/4 of a bottle of wine and I'm a real lightweight)