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UK ‘powering forward’ on clean energy, says energy minister

Energy minister Charles Hendry says that the latest UK energy statistics released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show that the UK is ‘powering ahead’ in the field of renewable energy.

The official statistics for the first quarter of 2012 show that:

-Renewable energy accounted for 3.8 percent of total energy consumption
-Renewables’ share of electricity generation rose to 11.1 per cent
-Renewable electricity generation was 11.1 TWh (an increase of 39 percent on Q1 2011)
-Onshore wind electricity generation increased from 2.4 TWh to 3.6 TWh
-Total renewable electricity capacity was 13GW (a 36.1 percent increase on a year earlier)

Responding to the data, Hendry said: “Today’s statistics show a clear increase on the first quarter of last year across all renewables – with rises in wind, hydro, solar and bioenergy generation.

“Alongside a 36 percent increase in renewables capacity in the last 12 months, this shows that the UK is powering forward on clean and secure energy and is clearly a very attractive place to invest.”