For the first time in history, renewable electricity generation in the U.K. outpaced fossil fuels across an entire calendar year. Wind, solar, and hydropower supplied 37 percent of Britain’s electricity in 2024 C.E., edging past the 35 percent share from fossil fuels — a milestone that would have seemed impossible just a decade ago.
At a glance
- U.K. renewable energy: Wind, solar, and hydropower hit 37 percent of electricity generation in 2024 C.E., compared to 35 percent from fossil fuels — the first time renewables have led for a full calendar year.
- Onshore wind growth: Generation from onshore wind rose 23 percent in the first nine months of 2024 C.E., helped by the lifting of England’s de facto planning ban on new onshore wind farms in July 2024 C.E.
- Coal phase-out: Britain’s last coal-fired power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, closed in 2024 C.E., ending a 142-year dependence on the fuel and sharply cutting the grid’s carbon emissions.
How far the U.K. has come
The scale of the shift becomes clearer when you look back. In 2000 C.E., roughly three-quarters of British electricity came from fossil fuels. As recently as 2021 C.E., fossil fuels still generated 46 percent of the country’s electricity, while renewables contributed only 27 percent.
The turnaround since then has been steep. Coal’s exit alone removed one of the oldest and most carbon-intensive sources from the grid entirely. Natural gas still dominates the fossil fuel side — at around 30 percent of total generation in 2024 C.E. — but even that is now a target for reduction.
Think tank Ember, which produced the analysis, projects that gas could fall below 5 percent of total generation by 2030 C.E., in line with the U.K. government’s clean power targets.
Wind leads the way
Wind power has been the primary engine of this transition. The 23 percent rise in onshore wind generation in early 2024 C.E. reflects years of investment finally paying off — and points to more growth ahead. England’s planning rules for onshore wind were eased last year, opening the door to faster deployment in the near term.
Offshore wind had a slower year by comparison, but several large projects are in the pipeline. They are expected to add 3.8 gigawatts to the U.K.’s 75 gigawatt total capacity over the coming years. By 2025 C.E., offshore wind is projected to cost around £44 per megawatt hour — less than 40 percent of the £114 per megawatt hour expected from gas generation.
“The renewables future is here,” said Frankie Mayo, an analyst at Ember. “It’s time to seize the moment, to cut reliance on expensive gas with new renewables, storage, and grid upgrades.”
More than just wind and sun
The milestone was not driven by renewables alone. Electricity imports played a supporting role. The U.K. can buy power from neighbors like France — which runs a large fleet of nuclear power stations — through undersea cables, bringing in lower-carbon electricity during periods of high demand.
Biomass also contributed to the overall renewable share, though it remains a contested energy source. Some researchers argue that burning wood pellets at scale — as the U.K.’s Drax power station does — produces significant emissions and competes with forest carbon storage. That debate is ongoing, and how biomass is counted will matter as the U.K. pushes further toward its 2030 C.E. clean power target.
The road ahead
The U.K. Labour government has made clean energy a central economic promise, framing it as a way to lower household energy bills and reduce exposure to volatile global gas markets. The comparison is stark: gas-fired power cost more than twice as much per megawatt hour as offshore wind is projected to cost next year.
Electricity demand is expected to rise as more homes and vehicles shift to electric power — which means the grid will need to keep expanding its renewable capacity just to hold the current balance, let alone improve it. Grid upgrades and storage infrastructure will be essential, and both are still catching up to the pace of generation growth.
Still, 2024 C.E. stands as a genuine turning point. National Grid ESO data has shown that on individual days, renewables have dominated the grid for years. What changed this year is that the lead held — not just on a windy afternoon, but across all four seasons, through heat waves and cold snaps and everything in between.
For a country that lit its first coal-fired power station in 1882 C.E., closing the last one 142 years later — and seeing clean energy take the lead in the same year — is a marker worth pausing on. The Climate Change Committee has long argued that decarbonizing the grid is the foundation for decarbonizing everything else. That foundation is now measurably stronger.
Read more
For more on this story, see: The Independent
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- Global suicide rate has fallen by 40% since 1995
- The Good News for Humankind archive on United Kingdom
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