The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2020 reveals that renewable generation capacity increased by 2.9GW to 47.2GW in 2019, which was mainly driven by additional onshore and offshore wind.
Wind alone generated 20% of the total annual amount of electricity generated from all sources (325TWh), with onshore and offshore wind each contributing 32TWh.
Renewables and nuclear combined hit a record 54.4% of total generation while gas generated 40.6% and coal fell to an all-time low of just 2.1%.
Overall energy production fell by 0.2% from 2018, while energy consumption decreased by 0.9%.
Provisional BEIS estimates state that emissions from energy production fell by 14.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (3.9%) to 351.5 MtCO2 between 2018 and 2019.
Renewable Energy Association chief executive Dr Nina Skorupska CBE said; “The growth of renewable electricity in the UK continues to be a major success story. The UK continues to break records and the success of getting to just under 40% renewable electricity generation in little over a decade deserves to be celebrated.”