Windfarms provided
more electricity than Britain’s nuclear power stations in the first three
months of 2018, the first time it has ever done so across a quarter.
Between January and March, wind power produced
18.8% of the UK’s energy needs, compared to nuclear’s 18.76%. Gas was still the
dominant source of the country’s electricity, at 39.4%.
Overnight on 17 March, wind accounted for almost half (47%)
of Britain’s electricity, another new record, a report by
researchers at Imperial College London revealed.
Despite doubts over wind’s ability to keep
up supply during cold, calm spells, it provided between 12% and
43% of Britain’s electricity demand during the so-called Beast from the
East, when the UK was struck by a
prolonged and vicious cold snap at the end of February.
The opening of a new 2.2GW cable connecting Scotland - which
has 7.7GW of wind capacity – to North Wales also helped to generate additional
capacity over the first three months of the year.
Nuclear
power was held back in the first quarter after two reactors
temporarily went offline for maintenance, while another shut down after seaweed
clogged the plant’s cooling system.
But the apparent progress in renewables came as MPs warned
there had been a “dramatic and worrying collapse” in clean energy investment
over the past three years.
Despite low-carbon sources providing more than half of
Britain’s electricity needs last year, annual investment in clean energy
dropped 50 per cent in 2017, according to the Commons environmental audit
committee.
A report published by MPs blamed government policy changes,
including cuts to clean energy subsidies.
“Billions of pounds of investment is needed in clean energy,
transport, heating and industry to meet our carbon targets,” said Mary Creagh, Labour
MP and the committee’s chair.
“But a dramatic fall in investment is threatening the
government’s ability to meet legally binding climate change targets.”
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