Spotlight on the UK’s Renewable Independent Market

To mark the launch of our new whitepaper, ‘Spotlight on the UK’s renewable independent market’, our Head of Generation Sales, Angus Widdowson, shares his views on the growth of the sector over the last year. 

Our long-term customers and stakeholders may be familiar with our annual analysis of the independent generation market, where we track the growth year on year against the UK’s net zero targets. We analyse the growth using data from BEIS Renewable Energy Planning Database and this year we reveal the total UK renewable generation capacity has reached 46.9GW (recorded in Oct 22), that’s over a 7% rise on the previous year. 53% of the UK’s total generation capacity comes from the independent sector. 

> Download the whitepaper to see a breakdown by technology and country

With ambitious 2030 targets published in the British Energy Security Strategy, there’s still a long way to go and with the long lead times to get new build projects underway and lengthy planning processes between consent and construction it could be challenging to meet 2030 deployment goals.  

However, the latest CfD auction round 4 has helped catapult growth with contracts awarded to 93 new renewable projects, expected to deliver ~11GW of renewable energy by 2029. An estimated 35% of this output comes from independent generation projects. With auctions continuing on an annual basis, we estimate a growth trajectory of around 2-6GW per year. 

The impact of the energy crisis over the last year has highlighted the importance of a reliable and affordable energy system with a focus on long-term energy security. Over the last year we’ve witnessed the impact of the war on Ukraine, driving UK prices to a level never seen before. The revenue cap introduced by Ofgem late last year means the generation sector is playing a key role in supporting UK consumers and delivering energy security.